Some progress in sexual reproduction and sex determination of economic algae

Abstract

With the rapid development of marine industry, algae as an important economic plant as well as an extremely promising energy source, is now attracting more and more attention. As a result of this, elucidating the basic physiological mechanisms of algae becomes even more urgent. Of all the fields, sexual reproduction and sex determination are basic and essential aspects. In this review, we summarized the advances of sex in several typical algae which are of great economic importance and often used as model organism for basic research.

Key words: Sexual reproduction, sex determination, sex-related genes, algae, life cycle.