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The Glaucocystophyta (e.g., Cyanophora paradoxa) form a morphologically distinct group of photosynthetic protists that is primarily distinguished by its cyanelles (= plastids). To elucidate their evolutionary relationships, we determined nuclear-encoded small-subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) coding regions for four taxa classified in the Glaucocystophyta (C. paradoxa, Glaucocystis nostochinearum, Glaucosphaera vacuolata, Gloeochaete wittrockiana; sensu Kies and Kremer), and these sequences were positioned within the eukaryotic phylogeny. Maximum likelihood, maximum-parsimony, and neighbor-joining phylogenetic analyses show that the Glaucocystophyta is a relatively late-diverging monophyletic assemblage within the "crown" group radiation that forms a sister group to cryptophyte algae. Glaucosphaera vacuolata is a red alga and lacks some cyanelle (e.g., bounding peptidoglycan wall) and host cell (e.g., cruciate flagellar roots) characters typical of glaucocystophytes. Our data are consistent with a monophyletic origin of the cyanelle in the glaucocystophytes. The distribution of photosynthetic taxa within the glaucocystophytes/cryptophytes and other lineages such as the filose amoebae/chlorarachniophytes and heterokont protists provide clues to the origin of plastids with four bounding membranes. We speculate that multiple, likely independent, secondary endosymbioses gave rise to these plastids.

Comparisons of nuclear-encoded small-subunit ribosomal RNAs reveal the evolutionary position of the Glaucocystophyta.