Luke C. M. Mackinder

This study characterizes the pyrenoid structure and molecular components of Chlorella sorokiniana, revealing conserved inorganic carbon delivery machinery and novel proteins involved in pyrenoid assembly and starch tethering.

Fluorescent tagging of 160 proteins in the seaweed Ulva maps its carbon-concentrating pathway, and identifies SUPA1, a Rubisco linker that binds only four of eight sites.

Disruption of KEA-mediated chloroplast ion homeostasis in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii reveals conserved and lineage-specific control of plastid rRNA processing and cell cycle progression.

This study shows that varying the number of binding motifs in a disordered protein affects pyrenoid assembly and algal fitness.

This study investigates the role of LCI9 in starch sheath formation and CO2-concentrating mechanism efficiency in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, finding that LCI9 is essential for proper sheath assembly and pCCM function.

This study investigates the interaction between the CO2 concentrating mechanism and photorespiration in green algae under low CO2 conditions, finding that photorespiration remains active and glycolate excretion mitigates toxicity.

This study shows that tethering FNR to PSI in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii promotes CET over LET, reducing CO2 fixation.

The paper introduces CyanoTag, a high-throughput method for endogenous fluorescent protein tagging in Synechococcus elongatus, enabling subcellular localization, protein abundance tracking, and interaction network analysis of over 330 proteins.

The paper identifies a conserved linker protein from Chlorella that can phase separate Rubisco in Chlamydomonas and some plants, enabling cross-species pyrenoid formation.

The paper identifies a protein interaction network in the diatom pyrenoid, revealing a structural shell critical for CO2 fixation and suggesting convergent evolution with prokaryotic carboxysomes.

This study establishes Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a platform for chloroplast synthetic biology, enabling high-throughput engineering of plastomes and demonstrating improved biomass production through synthetic pathways.

This study resolves the complex phylogenetic relationships within Galdieria by analyzing genome-scale data from multiple strains, revealing divergent lineages and incongruent interlineage relationships across organellar and nuclear genomes.

The paper compares whole-genome sequences of three Galdieria sulphuraria strains, revealing structural rearrangements and a high number of nuclear chromosomes associated with adaptability in extreme environments.