The green lineage (Viridiplantae) comprises the green algae and their descendants the land
plants, and is one of the major groups of oxygenic photosynthetic eukaryotes. Current …

The genetic code—the language used by cells to translate their genomes into proteins that
perform many cellular functions—is highly conserved throughout natural life. Rewriting the …

The Neoproterozoic Era records the transition from a largely bacterial to a predominantly
eukaryotic phototrophic world, creating the foundation for the complex benthic ecosystems …

A limited number of non-canonical genetic codes have been described in eukaryotic nuclear
genomes. Most involve reassignment of one or two termination codons as sense ones [1–4] …

Reconstructing the early evolution of fungi and metazoans, two of the kingdoms of
multicellular eukaryotes thriving on earth, is a challenging task for biologists. Among extant …

Marine–freshwater and freshwater–marine transitions have been key events in the evolution
of life, and most major groups of organisms have independently undergone such events at …

Advances in high-throughput sequencing have resulted in a massive increase of RNA-Seq
transcriptome data. However, the promise of rapid gene expression profiling in a specific …

Abstract Background Species of Bryopsidales form ecologically important components of
seaweed communities worldwide. These siphonous macroalgae are composed of a single …

Ciliates, a eukaryotic clade that is over 1 billion years old, are defined by division of genome
function between transcriptionally inactive germline micronuclei and functional somatic …

Virtually all plastid (chloroplast) genomes are circular double-stranded DNA molecules,
typically between 100 and 200 kb in size and encoding circa 80–250 genes. Exceptions to …