Genome Biology

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Mergers and acquisitions: malaria and the great chloroplast heist

Geoffrey I McFadden

Author Affiliations

Plant Cell Biology Research Centre, School of Botany, University of Melbourne, 3052 Melbourne, Australia

Genome Biology 2000, 1:reviews1026-reviews1026.4 doi:10.1186/gb-2000-1-4-reviews1026

Published: 13 October 2000

Abstract

The origin of the relict chloroplast recently identified in malarial parasites has been mysterious. Several new papers suggest that the parasites obtained their chloroplasts in an ancient endosymbiotic event that also created some major algal groups.