The single-celled alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, while less than a thousandth of an inch in diameter, or about one fiftieth the size of a grain of salt, is packed with many ancient and informative surprises. Affectionately known to its large research community as "Chlamy", the alga is a powerful model system for the study of photosynthesis and cell motility. The genes that encode the alga's "flagella", which propel it much like a human sperm tail, were also cataloged in this study. Defects in these genes are associated with a growing list of human diseases.

"The Chlamy genome is like a green time capsule that affords a view into the complex core machinery that gave rise to today's energy-capturing and oxygen-producing chloroplasts," said Daniel Rokhsar, DOE JGI Computational Biology Program head, who co-led the effort with DOE JGI Computational Scientist Simon Prochnik, Arthur Grossman of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, and Sabeeha Merchant of UCLA.