The three anomalously pigmented dinoflagellates Gymnodinium galatheanum, Gyrodinium aureolum, and Gymnodinium breve have plastids possessing 19'-hexanoyloxy-fucoxanthin as the major carotenoid rather than peridinin, which is characteristic of the majority of the dinoflagellates. Analyses of SSU rDNA from the plastid and the nuclear genome of these dinoflagellate species indicate that they have acquired their plastids via endosymbiosis of a haptophyte. The dinoflagellate plastid sequences appear to have undergone rapid sequence evolution, and there is considerable divergence between the three species. However, distance, parsimony, and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analyses of plastid SSU rRNA gene sequences place the three species within the haptophyte clade. Pavlova gyrans is the most basal branching haptophyte and is the outgroup to a clade comprising the dinoflagellate sequences and those of other haptophytes. The haptophytes themselves are thought to have plastids of a secondary origin; hence, these dinoflagellates appear to have tertiary plastids. Both molecular and morphological data divide the plastids into two groups, where G. aureolum and G. breve have similar plastid morphology and G. galatheanum has plastids with distinctive features.

A magnetic bead-based system for DNA isolation utilizing monodisperse beads was tested with the aim of producing a general approach for PCR-ready DNA. This commercially available system was originally designed for isolating PCR-ready DNA from human whole blood. We tested diverse organisms belonging to the major groups: bacteria, fungi, algae, vascular plants and vertebrates. Optimization of sample amounts and lysis conditions was done using several types of tissue (fish epithelium, plant leaves, mammalian liver and muscle tissues, fungal fruit-bodies and mycelium). The standard lysis conditions used for blood could be applied with good results for most bacteria, algae and vertebrates, while plant leaves and fungal fruit-bodies had to be mechanically broken to obtain proper lysis. For vascular plants and some cyanobacteria, lysis by heating to 65 degrees C gave better DNA yields than standard lysis at room temperature. In all cases, DNA suitable for PCR was prepared in less than 30 min. The PCR products yielded 350 to 500 bases of DNA sequence (99% accurate) by direct manual or automated sequencing.