Oceanus Seminar Series - 08 FEB

OCEANUS SEMINAR SERIES | SÓNIA CRUZ | 08 FEB | 11:30

Title: Kleptoplasty: getting away with stolen chloroplasts

Photosynthesis is almost exclusively restricted to algae and plants, with the exception of some protozoans, flatworms and marine slugs that acquire chloroplasts from algae. In metazoans, the capacity to incorporate functional chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) for long periods of time has only been described in sacoglossan sea slugs. Some species retain photosynthetically active kleptoplasts for several months, which persist without access to algal gene products and despite the release of potentially dangerous metabolites, including reactive oxygen species. This talk will highlight unresolved questions on how the algal organelle is incorporated into the metabolism of an animal cell and discuss the host-associated benefits.

Name: Sónia Cruz

Sónia Cruz is Principal Researcher at CESAM/University of Aveiro.
She studied microalgae ecophysiology and photoprotection mechanisms in diatoms, being awarded a PhD from the University of Sheffield (UK) with research stays at Leipzig (Germany). Following postdoctoral research at Cambridge (UK) and Copenhagen (Denmark), she is now mostly dedicated to unravel the mechanism enabling the retention of functional chloroplasts in animal cells, for which she was recently awarded a European Research Council (ERC) starting Grant.

The seminar will take place at CIIMAR headquarters (Boca da Baleia Auditorium ).

External members of CIIMAR should send an email to divulgacao@ciimar.up.pt, requesting authorization to enter the Leixões Terminal area

f you are a CIIMAR member you can also access last seminars recordings through the LINK.