https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans Noctiluca scintillans is a marine species of dinoflagellate that can exist in a green or red form, depending on the pigmentation in its vacuoles. It can be found worldwide, but its geographical distribution varies depending on whether it is green or red. This unicellular microorganism is known for its ability to bioluminesce, giving the water a bright blue glow seen at night. en-us 2022-02-11 13:06:49 UTC 2022-02-25 13:34:29 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f9a0.png w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043698691 Sequencing of a bioluminescence gene in Noctiluca scintillans revealed that lbp in dinoflagellates comes in diverse forms as a result of significant evolutionary events such as gene fission or fusion (Liu and Hastings 2007). Discovery of lbp in this organism also showed that bioluminescent systems utilizing LBP are common in dinoflagellates. The bioluminescence gene of N. scintillans is unusual as lcf and lbp are found as two domains in one gene, whereas they are normally separate genes in all photosynthetic species studied to date (Liu and Hastings 2007). The origin of the hybrid structure of this lcf/lbp, has been suggested to be either by fusion of the two genes of photosynthetic species in N. scintillans or, conversely, fission of the N. scintillans gene into the photosynthetic species (Liu and Hastings 2007). Evidence suggests that the bioluminescence system of N. scintillans indeed represents the ancestral type, as its lack of typical dinoflagellate mitochondrial mRNA editing (Zhang and Lin 2008), a dinokaryotic nucleus restricted to the gamete stage (Taylor 2004) and phylogenetic analyses of ribosomal genes (Fukuda and Endoh 2008; Gomez et al. 2010a; Ki 2010) point towards it being a primitive dinoflagellate species. Phylogenetic analyses of protein coding genes have contradicted these conclusions (Orr et al. 2012), yet still place N. scintillans in an ancestral position relative to other known bioluminescent dinoflagellates. Therefore, the assumption that its bioluminescence genes represent the ancestral type is still supported.]]> 2022-02-12 13:23:44 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043698691 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043705974 ur finding of a second lbp in N. scintillans that occurs as a separate gene, in addition to the combined lcf/lbp, provides significant new insight into the evolution of dinoflagellate bioluminescence systems. Our analyses also allowed us to better define the border of the N-terminal region. By comparing our data to the full sequence on GenBank, the N-terminal region is 36-AA long, not 29 AA as stated by Liu and Hastings (2007).]]> 2022-02-12 13:34:21 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043705974 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043715587 We also show that nonphotosynthetic dinoflagellates have retained nonphotosynthetic plastids with vital metabolic functions, and propose that one of these may be the evolutionary source of dinoflagellate bioluminescence.]]> 2022-02-12 13:48:02 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043715587 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043721751 bioluminescence, an important predator defense strategy in dinoflagellates]]> 2022-02-12 13:57:23 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043721751 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043724315 In spite of the hypothesis of ‘bioluminescence for predation’, it is also hypothesized that the bioluminescent system evolved as ‘oxygen defence’ where light is generated as a simple by-product to avoid oxygen toxicity (Wilson and Hastings 2013).]]> 2022-02-12 14:00:55 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2043724315 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044109189  Bacterial luciferin can be substituted by H2O2 in the reaction with luciferase, but the reaction has a low light yield, thus indicating that the primary function of the system could have been related to the detoxification of H2O2 in a catalase-like manner ]]> 2022-02-12 23:28:53 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044109189 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044412297 McElroy and Seliger (1962) suggested that luciferases evolved to detoxify molecular oxygen in early anaerobic life forms at the time when photosynthetic processes had begun releasing oxygen into the primitive atmosphere. ]]> 2022-02-13 10:23:20 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044412297 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044437125 The efficiency of many examples of bioluminescence in nature is astounding; with more than 90% of energy input turned into light. By contrast, figures quoted for a 150lm/W LED suggest that around 20% of the total energy used is converted to visible light - significantly better than traditional lighting technologies, but way out of nature's range.]]> 2022-02-13 10:58:20 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044437125 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044460908 "a leading theory is that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere had finally reached levels that allowed large, complex animals to exist."]]> 2022-02-13 11:32:49 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044460908 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044513327 The functional shift from its antioxidative to its light-emitting function might have occurred when the strength of selection for antioxidative defence mechanisms decreased. ]]> 2022-02-13 12:48:46 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044513327 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044610927 Present review does not illustrate the evolutionary history of bioluminescence because it only focuses on visualising the bioluminescent protein homology across the tree of life.]]> 2022-02-13 14:50:47 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044610927 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044653780 “some examples of convergent evolution of protein function provides an impressive demonstration of the ability of natural selection to cobble together complex design solutions by tinkering with different variations of the same basic protein scaffold”]]> 2022-02-13 15:40:02 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044653780 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044718891 The importance of bioluminescence, particularly of LBP, to the life of the cell has been documented in several dinoflagellate transcriptome studies.]]> 2022-02-13 16:48:42 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044718891 w1803452 https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044720647 Bioluminescence systems evolved in response to low oxygen levels during the time between the great oxidation event (~2 billion years ago), when photosynthesis evolved, and the Cambrian explosion (500–550 million years ago).]]> 2022-02-13 16:50:30 UTC https://padlet.com/w1803452/Noctiluca_scintillans/wish/2044720647