The green seaweed Ulva: a model system to study morphogenesis

Abstract

Green macroalgae, mostly represented by the Ulvophyceae, the main multicellular branch of the Chlorophyceae, constitute important primary producers of marine and brackish coastal ecosystems. Ulva or sea lettuce species are some of the most abundant representatives, being ubiquitous in coastal benthic communities around the world. Nonetheless the genus also remains largely understudied. This review highlights Ulva as an exciting novel model organism for studies of algal growth, development and morphogenesis as well as mutualistic interactions. The key reasons that Ulva is potentially such a good model system are: (i) patterns of Ulva development can drive ecologically important events, such as the increasing number of green tides observed worldwide as a result of eutrophication of coastal waters, (ii) Ulva growth is symbiotic, with proper development requiring close association with bacterial epiphytes, (iii) Ulva is extremely developmentally plastic, which can shed light on the transition from simple to complex multicellularity and (iv) Ulva will provide additional information about the evolution of the green lineage.

Seaweed reproductive biology: environmental and genetic controls

“…A similar approach, applied to seaweeds and drawing on the extensive existing ecophysiological data, has the potential to significantly increase our knowledge of seaweed reproduction. At present, considerable progress is being made by establishing a number of model organisms for which whole genome data are already available or are in the process of being generated, including Ectocarpus , Pyropia (Nakamura et al 2013), Chondrus (Collén et al 2013), Saccharina (Ye et al 2015) and Ulva (see Wichard et al 2015). These genomic resources, in combination with genetic maps and the possibility of creating developmental mutants for forward genetics (e.g.…”

Nuevo registro de Ulva australis (Ulvaceae, Chlorophyta) en el norte de Chile

“…La taxonomía tradicional de Ulva se ha basado en características morfológicas como la forma y tamaño del talo, presencia/ausencia de dientes marginales, dimensiones celulares y número de pirenoides (Guiry & Guiry 2017). Sin embargo, muchos estudios han demostrado que estas características son altamente variables (Zhang et al 2013, Wichard et al 2015, Gao et al 2016, por lo que la identificación a nivel de especies ha sido particularmente difícil debido a la alta variabilidad morfológica y plasticidad fenotípica intraespecífica. En ese contexto, es fundamental el uso de herramientas complementarias como las técnicas moleculares, las cuales han tenido éxito en identificación de especies de Ulva (Baamondes et al 2007, Aguilar-Rosas et al 2008).…”

Enzymatically Crosslinked Ulvan Hydrogels as Injectable Systems for Cell Delivery

“…The exploitation of Ulva has been so far limited in Eastern countries for food consumption and dietary supplements although it represents the most abundant green macroalgae being ubiquitous in coastal benthic communities around the world. [ 4,5 ] The sugar composition of ulvan is extremely variable but rhamnose, xylose, glucuronic, and iduronic acid and the presence of sulphate groups have been identifi ed as the main constituents of the polymer. [ 6 ] A structural motif characterizes the heteropolymer chain provided by the presence of disaccharide repeating units…”