A new jigsaw piece in the evolution of green algae has been identified by researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum together with colleagues from Max Planck Institute in Mülheim an der Ruhr. They analysed the hydrogen-producing enzyme of a phylogenetically old alga. Its properties were radically different from those of analogous enzymes in more recent algae. The team headed by Vera Engelbrecht and Prof Dr Thomas Happe from the research group Photobiotechnology in Bochum outlines their results in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.