page_title: Chloroplast
section_title: Euglenophytes
hierarchical_section_title: Chloroplast / Lineages and evolution / Secondary and tertiary endosymbiosis / Green algal derived chloroplasts / Euglenophytes
caption_attribution_description: Chlorarachnion reptans Grell 1990 / from Amami-Oshima, Kagoshima Pref., Japan / Microscope:Leica DMRD (DIC)
context_page_description: Chloroplasts are organelles that conduct photosynthesis, where the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight, converts it, and stores it in the energy-storage molecules ATP and NADPH while freeing oxygen from water in plant and algal cells. They then use the ATP and NADPH to make organic molecules from carbon dioxide in a process known as the Calvin cycle. Chloroplasts carry out a number of other functions, including fatty acid synthesis, much amino acid synthesis, and the immune response in plants. The number of chloroplasts per cell varies from one, in unicellular algae, up to 100 in plants like Arabidopsis and wheat.
  A chloroplast is a type of organelle known as a plastid, characterized by its two membranes and a high concentration of chlorophyll. Other plastid types, such as the leucoplast and the chromoplast, contain little chlorophyll and do not carry out photosynthesis.
  Chloroplasts are highly dynamic—they circulate and are moved around within plant cells, and occasionally pinch in two to reproduce. Their behavior is strongly influenced by environmental factors like light color and intensity.
context_section_description: Euglenophytes are a group of common flagellated protists that contain chloroplasts derived from a green alga. Euglenophyte chloroplasts have three membranes—it is thought that the membrane of the primary endosymbiont was lost, leaving the cyanobacterial membranes, and the secondary host's phagosomal membrane. Euglenophyte chloroplasts have a pyrenoid and thylakoids stacked in groups of three. Photosynthetic product is stored in the form of paramylon, which is contained in membrane-bound granules in the cytoplasm of the euglenophyte.
caption: Chlorarachnion reptans is a chlorarachniophyte. Chlorarachniophytes replaced their original red algal endosymbiont with a green alga.
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