Acclimation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to its nutrient environment

To cope with low nutrient availability in nature, organisms have evolved in ducible systems that enable them to scavenge and efficiently utilize the li miting nutrient. Furthermore, organisms must have the capacity to adjust th eir rate of metabolism and make specific alterations in metabolic pathways that favor survival when the potential for cell growth and division is redu ced. In this article I will focus on the acclimation of Chlamydomonas reinh ardtii, a unicellular, eukaryotic green alga to conditions of nitrogen, sul fur and phosphorus deprivation. This organism has a distinguished history a s a model for classical genetic analyses, but it has recently been develope d for exploitation using an array of molecular and genomic tools. The appli cation of these tools to the analyses of nutrient limitation responses (and other biological processes) is revealing mechanisms that enable Chlamydomo nas to survive harsh environmental conditions and establishing relationship s between the responses of this morphologically simple, photosynthetic euka ryote and those of both nonphotosynthetic organisms and vascular plants.