The cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus is the most abundant photosynthetic organism in the oceans and fixes approximately 4 gigatons of carbon each year, comparable to the net global primary ...

One such cyanobacterium native to Japan—Aphanothece sacrum, also known as Suizenji-nori—has been extensively studied for its bioactive properties and potential health benefits. Notably ...

Their origin is explained by endosymbiosis, the act of a unicellular heterotrophic protist engulfing a free-living photosynthetic cyanobacterium and retaining it, instead of digesting it in the ...

They evolved about 1.6 billion years ago when one cell, incapable of using the sun’s energy, engulfed another cell—a cyanobacterium—that could. That cyanobacterium became the ancestor of ...