Photosynthesis in the dark? Unraveling the mystery of algae evolution

Researchers compared the photosynthetic regulation in glaucophytes with that in cyanobacteria, to elucidate the changes caused by symbiosis in the interaction between photosynthetic electron transfer and other metabolic pathways. Their findings suggest that cyanelles of the glaucophyte Cyanophora paradoxa retain many of the characteristics observed in their ancestral bacteria, and that C. paradoxa is the primary symbiotic algae most similar to cyanobacteria than other lineages of photosynthetic organisms in terms of metabolic interactions.