News on Geosiphon pyriforme, an Endocytobiotic Consortium of a Fungus with a Cyanobacterium

Abstract

Kluge M, Gehrig H, Mollenhauer D, Mollenhauer R, Schnepf E, Schüßler A (1997) News on Geosiphon pyriforme, an endosymbiotic consortium of a fungus with a cyanobacterium. In: Eukaryotism and Symbiosis. Schenk, H.E.A., Herrmann, R., Jeon, K.W., Müller, N.E., Schwemmler, W. (eds). Springer-Verlag. pp. 469-476 Abstract Geosiphon pyriforme (Kütz.) v. Wettstein is a coenocytic soil fungus and up to now the only known example of a fungus living in endocytobiotic association with a cyanobacterium, i.e. with Nostoc punctiforme. Due to the physiological activities of the endosymbiont the consortium is capable of C- and N-autotrophic life. Nevertheless Geosiphon together with its endosymbiont has to be considered as a rathfile:///A:/LMU/A_Publikationen/G E D R U C K T/92-99/97 Review Eukaryotism+Symbiosis/469-472+475.pdfer primitive endocytobiotic system because the partners can be experimentally separated and unified. Thus, the system may provide insights into the decisive initial steps leading in the evolution to more derived systems which finally culminate in the well-established complexes called eukaryotic cells. In spite of its potential importance for research on endocytobioses, studies on Geosiphon are still rare. The state of knowledge until 1993 has been reviewed recently (Kluge et al., 1994; Mollenhauer and Kluge, 1994). In the present paper we report on some new results from our group. Keywords: Geosiphon pyriforme, molecular phylogeny, partner recognition; physiology