Cyanidium caldarium. Cyanidium caldarium

The Cyanidiales are asexual, unicellular red algae, which live around hot springs in hot, acidic conditions. This taxa is currently classified into three genera, Cyanidium, Cyanidioschyzon and Galdieria. They have spherical thick-walled cells that contain, plastid, mitochondria, nucleus, and a vacuole. They represent one of the most ancient groups of algae. Cyanidium caldarium was first isolated by M.B. Allen from a hot spring in California. It can grow at temperatures of upto 57°C and at a pH of 0.05. It is extemely tolerant to high levels of various metal ions particularly aluminum. The chloroplast genome of C. caldarium has been sequenced. It is a 164,921 bp circular genome. Several genes unique to this genome have been found, five that may be involved in building of bacterial cell envelopes and two genes that may play a role in stabilizing the photosynthetic machinery against salt stress and detoxification.