Braarudosphaera bigelowii
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| Species: | B. bigelowii
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| Braarudosphaera bigelowii (Gran & Braarud) Deflandre[1]
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Braarudosphaera bigelowii is a coastal coccolithophore in the fossil record going back 100 million years to the Late Cretaceous.
Coccolithophore
The family Braarudosphaeraceae consist of single-celled coastal phytoplanktonic algae with calcareous scales with five-fold symmetry, called pentaliths. With 12 sides, it has a regular dodecahedral structure, approximately 10 micrometers across.[2][3]
Nitroplast
B. bigelowii has a nitroplast organelle, originated some 100 million years ago from a cyanobacterial endosymbiont called UCYN-A2, which allows B. bigelowii to fix nitrogen and convert it into compounds useful for cell growth.[4][5][6] This phenomenon is previously known from diatoms in the family Rhopalodiaceae, where a nitrogen fixing and non-photosynthetic cyanobacterial endosymbiont, a diazoplast, provides the photosynthetic host cell with nitrogen.[7][8]
Name
The genus name Braarudosphaera is in honour of Norwegian botanist Trygve Braarud (1903–1985). He specialized in marine biology, and was affiliated with the University of Oslo.[9]
References
- ^ Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. "Braarudosphaera bigelowii". AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway.
- ^ a b Hagino, Kyoko; Onuma, Ryo; Kawachi, Masanobu; Horiguchi, Takeo (4 December 2013). "Discovery of an Endosymbiotic Nitrogen-Fixing Cyanobacterium UCYN-A in Braarudosphaera bigelowii (Prymnesiophyceae)". PLOS ONE. 8 (12): e81749. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...881749H. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081749. PMC 3852252. PMID 24324722.
- ^ Baisas, Laura (18 April 2024). "For the first time in one billion years, two lifeforms truly merged into one organism". Popular Science. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
- ^ Massana, Ramon (12 April 2024). "The nitroplast: A nitrogen-fixing organelle". Science. 384 (6692): 160–161. doi:10.1126/science.ado8571. PMID 38603513.
- ^ Wong, Carissa (25 April 2024). "Scientists discover first algae that can fix nitrogen — thanks to a tiny cell structure". Nature. 628 (8009): 702. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01046-z. PMID 38605201.
- ^ "Scientists Discover First Nitrogen-Fixing Organelle" (Press release). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 17 April 2024.
- ^ Moulin, Solène L. Y.; Frail, Sarah; Braukmann, Thomas; Doenier, Jon; Steele-Ogus, Melissa; Marks, Jane C.; Mills, Matthew M.; Yeh, Ellen (15 April 2024). "The endosymbiont of Epithemia clementina is specialized for nitrogen fixation within a photosynthetic eukaryote". ISME Communications. 4: ycae055. doi:10.1093/ismeco/ycae055. PMC 11070190. PMID 38707843.
- ^ Nakayama, Takuro; Inagaki, Yuji (12 October 2017). "Genomic divergence within non-photosynthetic cyanobacterial endosymbionts in rhopalodiacean diatoms". Scientific Reports. 7 (1): 13075. Bibcode:2017NatSR...713075N. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-13578-8. PMC 5638926. PMID 29026213.
- ^ Burkhardt, Lotte (2022). Eine Enzyklopädie zu eponymischen Pflanzennamen: Von Menschen & ihren Pflanzen [An encyclopedia on eponymous plant names: About people & their plants] (in German). p. B-110. doi:10.3372/epolist2022. ISBN 978-3-946292-41-8.
External links
