Chlamydomonas reinhardtii ? a model organism in research of cell, mitochondrial and chloroplast cycle.

Abstract

The relative ease of culture, a short cell cycle, known whole genome sequence and a large number of different types of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutants, make this unicellular green alga a very attractive model organism for studies of the development and functioning of cell.The structure of nuclear and chloroplast genome of C. reinhardtii is more resembling genomes of vascularplants than simple eukaryotes. Mitochondrial genome of this organism is one of the smallest in plants and occurs as a linear, double-stranded molecule. Known whole genome sequence and the possibility of their transformation have allowed Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to become a highly valuable model for molecular approaches of cell cycle regulation and relationship between the cell, mitochondrial and chloroplast cycle.