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Phragmoplastin, green algae and the evolution of cytokinesis

Juan M. López-Bautista^1,, Debra A. Waters² and Russell L. Chapman^2,3

¹ Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA 70503-2451, USA
² Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001, USA
³ Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001, USA

Correspondence
Russell L. Chapman
chapman{at}lsu.edu

Phragmoplast-mediated cell division characterizes the land plants in the streptophyte lineage and some species of the green algal orders Coleochaetales, Charales and Zygnematales that are basal to that lineage. This type of cell division is generally not found in the other green plant lineage, the chlorophyte algae. A well-developed phragmoplast-type cell division has been documented, however, in two subaerial green algae (Cephaleuros parasiticus and Trentepohlia odorata) belonging to the order Trentepohliales – an order that molecular sequence data place unequivocally within the chlorophytes rather than streptophytes. Is the phragmoplast-mediated cell division of the Trentepohliales a case of homology or non-homology? To gain more insight into this question, we are exploring the potential phylogenetic information inferred from gene sequences of phragmoplastin, a dynamin-like protein that has been associated with cell-plate formation during phragmoplast-mediated cytokinesis in land plants. Primers for green algae were designed based on an available phragmoplastin sequence from soybean and yielded PCR amplifications from the trentepohlialean green algae Trentepohlia and Cephaleuros and the leafy liverwort Bazzania. These are the first published data for phragmoplastins in algae and liverworts. Analysis of phragmoplastin gene sequences in chlorophyte and streptophyte green algae may help to chart the evolution of the development of the phragmoplast.

Published online ahead of print on 25 October 2002 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.02561-0.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the phragmoplastin sequences of Bazzania trilobata, Cephaleuros virescens (South Africa), Cephaleuros virescens (USA) and Trentepoholia iolithus are respectively AY146407–AY146410.

Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama, PO Box 870345, 425 Scientific Collections Bldg, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345, USA.

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