Genome of Ulva compressa

The marine alga Ulva compressa is a green macrolaga that is tolerant to several heavy metals such as copper, cadmium and zinc and it accumulates these heavy metals in chloroplats. Mechanism of copper tolerance and accumulation have been studied for more than 20 years allowing the detection of antioxidant enzymes, metallothioneins involved in heavy metal accumulation, signal transduction protein kinases and channels involved in extracellular calcium entry and intracellular calcium release. In this work, we aim to identify genes encoding the latter proteins as well as regulatory transcription factors, enzymes that synthesize phytohormones, enzymes that sinthesize the cell wall and proteins involved in cell cycle regulation.