Rhodelphis
Rhodelphis is a single-celled archaeplastid that lives in aquatic environments and is the sister group to red algae and possibly Picozoa.Rhodelphis contains a remnant plastid that is not capable of photosynthesis, but may play a role in biochemical pathways in the cell like heme synthesis and iron-sulfur clustering.The plastid has retained some function in iron-sulfur cluster assembly and heme biosynthesis, but it does not synthesize fatty acids or isoprenoids—Rhodelphis uses different pathways in the cytosol for this.[1] In addition, genomic analyses revealed that Rhodelphis contains many sequences that are absent in red algae, such as those that encode flagellar proteins and components required for phagocytosis.Since there are few intermediates of primary endosymbiotic events, the discovery of Rhodelphis may be able to provide insight into the type of organisms that may have taken up plastids in the first place, the ancestors to all archaeplastids.