The development of advanced proteomics tools allowed the
identification of not only the most abundant but also minor
proteins present in LDs. For example,[200 proteins were
identified in purified lipid droplets of C. reinhardtii (Moellering
and Benning 2010; Nguyen et al. 2011), a feature
contrary to oil bodies of plant oilseeds where relatively
fewer proteins have been detected (Jolivet et al. 2009), but
strikingly similar to the proteome of mammalian lipid
droplets (Farese and Walther 2009; Goodman 2008). This
particular protein composition of algal lipid droplets could
reflect the fact that C. reinhardtii is derived from a common
ancestor of plants and animals over 1 billion years
ago, and some features have been conserved along one
lineage, whereas others lost along the other lineage (Merchant
et al. 2007).