Project name: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Description: Chlamydomonas is a genus of unicellular green algae found widely in fresh water, on damp soil, and a few occur in the sea. The cells are spherical or ellipsoidal. They have two equal flagella, present at the anterior end of the cell. The cell is surrounded by a fibrous glycoprotein cell wall. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is the most commonly used laboratory species of Chlamydomonas since it can grow quickly with a generation time of 5 hrs and can form colonies on plates. In wild they survive in many different environments throughout the world. It is motile and cells of this species are haploid and can become diploid when deprived of nitrogen. Though photosynthetic, they can survive in total darkness in the presence of acetate. It has therefore been used as a model system to study photosynthesis and chloroplast biogenesis, mitochondrial biogenesis, flagellar assembly and motility, phototaxis, circadian rhythms, gametogenesis and mating, and cellular metabolism.C. reinhardtii has a genome size of about 120 Mb. It is haploid and has 17 chromosomes. It is an excellent system to study mutations as it has only a single copy of each gene.

Last updated: 2004-06-25