Single gene circles in dinoflagellate chloroplast genomes

Photosynthetic dinoflagellates are important aquatic primary producers and notorious causes of toxic ‘red tides’. Typical dinoflagellate chloroplasts differ from all other plastids in having a combination of three envelope membranes1 and peridinin-chlorophyll a /c light-harvesting pigments2. Despite evidence of a dinoflagellete satellite DNA containing chloroplast genes3, previous attempts to obtain chloroplast gene sequences have been uniformly...