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Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Microscopy of Fission Yeast Sexual Lifecycle
Published on: March 9, 2016
Switching it up: algal insights into sexual transitions
1Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Max-Planck-Ring 5, 72076, Tübingen, Germany. susana.coelho@tuebingen.mpg.de.
Abstract:
While the process of meiosis is highly conserved across eukaryotes, the sexual systems that govern life cycle phase transitions are surprisingly labile. Switches between sexual systems have profound evolutionary and ecological consequences, in particular for plants, but our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms and ultimate causes underlying these transitions is still surprisingly incomplete. We explore here the idea that brown and green algae may be interesting comparative models that can increase our understanding of relevant processes in plant reproductive biology, from evolution of gamete dimorphism, gametogenesis, sex determination and transitions in sex-determining systems.
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