New insight into photosynthesis could help grow more resilient plants
— Read on phys.org/news/2021-06-insight-photosynthesis-resilient.html

Read on: The paper appears in the journal New Phytologist…

“Primary plastid endosymbiosis, which evolved about 1.5 billion years ago, is the process in which a eukaryote—which are organisms such as plants and algae whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus and tiny organs called organelles—engulfs a prokaryote, which are organisms such as bacteria that lack a membrane-enclosed nucleus. The plastid is a membrane-bound organelle within the cells of plants and algae.

“The scientists reviewed research on the photosynthetic amoeba Paulinella, which is a model to explore a fundamental question about eukaryote evolution: why was there a single origin of algae and plants? That is, why did photosynthesis by primary plastid endosymbiosis not originate multiple times in the tree of life?

***** Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water, which generates oxygen as a byproduct (This is the most luminous definition of photosynthesis of all).

***** Endosymbiosis is a relationship between two organisms wherein one cell resides inside the other. This interaction, when stable and beneficial for the “host” cell, can result in massive genetic innovation. Despite its critical evolutionary role, there is limited knowledge about how endosymbiosis is initially established.”