Chlamydomonas Resource Center

Welcome to the Chlamydomonas Resource Center, a central repository to receive, catalog, preserve, and distribute high-quality and reliable wild type and mutant cultures of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as well as useful molecular reagents and kits for education and research.

The Resource Center is funded by the National Science Foundation and located in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Minnesota. Our mission is to maintain and distribute materials for Chlamydomonas research and to provide information to researchers.

Chlamydomonas is a haploid unicellular eukaryote; each cell contains a chloroplast similar to those of plants and swims with two flagella (cilia) similar to those found in numerous other eukaryotic groups including mammals. In 2007, the haploid nuclear genome was sequenced and found to encode approximately 15,000 genes. The mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes also have been sequenced.

For more than 50 years, Chlamydomonas has served as a useful experimental system for genetics research on chloroplast biogenesis and function, flagellar assembly and motility, metabolic pathways (including lipid production), the circadian clock, and many other fundamental biological processes. Mutant strains generated in these studies are maintained and distributed by the Resource Center.

The Chlamy Center is supported by the National Science Foundation Living Stock Collections for Biological Research program (grant numbers 0951671 & 00017383) and by users like you.  Thank you for your support.