Genome sequencing of the unicellular red alga Cyanidium caldarium

Cyanidiophyceae are unicellular red algae that thrive in thermo-acidic environments. This group is thought to have diverged from other red algae during early eukaryotic evolution. We found that Cyanidium caldarium, a member of the class Cyanidiophyceae, exhibits a sexual life cycle, alternating between a cell-walled diploid and a cell wall-less haploid, with both phases capable of proliferating asexually. To establish Cd. caldarium as a model organism for molecular genetic studies, we determined its nuclear, chloroplast, and mitochondrial genome sequences.