Irma Vitonytė

The paper reports a near telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of Micractinium conductrix, enabling genomic studies of endosymbiosis and biotechnological applications.

The paper shows that adaptation to free-living conditions in algal endosymbionts leads to loss of host benefits, driven by metabolic trade-offs, with nitrogen availability as a key factor.

This study shows that endosymbiotic algae evolve traits specialized for intracellular niches, reducing their fitness in extracellular environments, thereby stabilizing endosymbiosis through evolutionary entrapment.