Impact of Sulfur Starvation in Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Cultures of the Extremophilic Microalga Galdieria phlegrea (Cyanidiophyceae) 1, 1 1 2 1 Regular Paper Simona Carfagna *, Claudia Bottone , Pia Rosa Cataletto , Milena Petriccione , Gabriele Pinto , Giovanna Salbitani1, Vincenza Vona1, Antonino Pollio1 and Claudia Ciniglia3 1Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Foria 223, I-80139 Naples, Italy 2Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Unita` di ricerca per la Frutticoltura, Via Torrino 2, I-81100 Caserta, Italy cDepartment of Biological and Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Second University of Naples, Via Vivaldi 43, I-81100 Caserta, Italy *Corresponding author: E-mail,
[email protected]; Fax, +39-081-2538523. (Received October 02, 2015; Accepted June 3, 2016) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/pcp/article/57/9/1890/2223225 by guest on 24 September 2021 In plants and algae, sulfate assimilation and cysteine synthe- Cyanidiophyceae, one of the most ancient groups of algae, sis are regulated by sulfur (S) accessibility from the environ- which diverged from the base of Rhodophyta approximately ment. This study reports the effects of S deprivation in 1.3 billion years (Mu¨ller et al. 2001, Yoon et al. 2006). Three autotrophic and heterotrophic cultures of Galdieria phlegrea genera, Cyanidium, Cyanidioschyzon and Galdieria, are recog- (Cyanidiophyceae), a unicellular red alga isolated in the nized in the class Cyanidiophyceae, and presently five Galdieria Solfatara crater located in Campi Flegrei (Naples, Italy), species, G. sulphuraria, G. daedala, G. partita, G. maxima and where H2S is the prevalent form of gaseous S in the fumarolic G. phlegrea, have been described based on morphological char- fluids and S is widespread in the soils near the fumaroles.