Nutritional basis for relating <i>Prototheca</i> and <i>Chlorella</i>

Abstract

Prototheca, which has been referred to as an achlorophyllous Chlorella, is now for the first time associated nutritionally with Chlorella protothecoides. Prototheca spp. and C. protothecoides share a requirement for thiamine and lack the ability to assimilate nitrate. This provides circumstantial evidence that Prototheca and C. protothecoides are related and excludes the other morphologically similar Chlorella.