brown, photosynthetic, filamentous alga. Pylaiella littoralis strain:Kjellm

Pylaiella littoralis is a small bushy filamentous alga of the order Ectocarpales which are considered as the ancestral group for all other brown algae. These are brown, photosynthetic and filamentous algae where the thallus is composed of uniseriate filaments. They are diplohaplontic, having a haploid and diploid generations. They exhibit simple cytological characteristics consisting of peripheral plastids and a central nucleus. In order to understand the evolution of the mitochondrial genomes, mitochondria of P. littoralis has been completely sequenced. It showed the presence of several alpha-proteobacterial characteristics and the presence of several other rarer genes.