A team of researchers led by Dr. Sebastian Hess from the University of Cologne’s Institute of Zoology has studied the expression of carbohydrate-active enzymes in the unicellular organism Orciraptor agilis by RNA sequencing. Orciraptor is a so-called “protoplast feeder” and lives exclusively from the cell contents of dead algae. To do this, it has to penetrate the cellulosic cell wall of the prey. In collaboration with colleagues at the Centre for Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Bioinformatics (CGEB) in Halifax, Canada, the UoC researchers were able to identify a possible key enzyme for the highly specialized feeding act of the protist.
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Source: Phys.org