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Archamoebae
The Archamoebae are a group of protists originally thought to have evolved before the acquisition of mitochondria by eukaryotes. They include genera that are internal parasites or commensals of animals ('' Entamoeba'' and '' Endolimax''). A few species are human pathogens, causing diseases such as amoebic dysentery. The other genera of archamoebae live in freshwater habitats and are unusual among amoebae in possessing flagella. Most have a single nucleus and flagellum, but the giant amoeba '' Pelomyxa'' has many of each. Description Archamoebae are a diverse group of amoebae. Many have flagella for motility, while others do not. They grow in the absence of oxygen, though some can tolerate small amounts. Most described species of Archamoebae either lack mitochondria or are described to have reduced mitosomes. Habitat They thrive and live in soil, freshwater, and marine habitats. History The group Archamoebae was proposed by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 1998 as part of the Arch ...
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Pelomyxa
''Pelomyxa'' is a genus of giant flagellar amoebae, usually 500–800 μm but occasionally up to 5 mm in length, found in anaerobic or microaerobic bottom sediments of stagnant freshwater ponds or slow-moving streams.Chistyakova, L. V., and A. O. Frolov. "Light and electron microscopic study of Pelomyxa stagnalis sp. n.(Archamoebae, pelobiontida)." Cell and Tissue Biology 5.1 (2011): 90-97. The genus was created by R. Greeff, in 1874, with ''Pelomyxa palustris'' as its type species. In the decades following the erection of ''Pelomyxa'', researchers assigned numerous new species to it. However, in the last quarter of the 20th century, investigators reduced the genus to a single species, ''Pelomyxa palustris'', which was understood to be a highly changeable organism with a complex life cycle, whose various phases had been mistaken for separate species. All described species were relegated to the status of synonyms, or moved to the unrelated genus ''Chaos''. Since 2004, fo ...
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Mitochondrion
A mitochondrion () is an organelle found in the cell (biology), cells of most eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double lipid bilayer, membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used throughout the cell as a source of chemical energy. They were discovered by Albert von Kölliker in 1857 in the voluntary muscles of insects. The term ''mitochondrion'', meaning a thread-like granule, was coined by Carl Benda in 1898. The mitochondrion is popularly nicknamed the "powerhouse of the cell", a phrase popularized by Philip Siekevitz in a 1957 ''Scientific American'' article of the same name. Some cells in some multicellular organisms lack mitochondria (for example, mature mammalian red blood cells). The multicellular animal ''Henneguya zschokkei, Henneguya salminicola'' is known to have retained mitochondrion-related organelles despite a complete loss of their mitochondrial genome. A large number ...
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Mastigamoebina
The Archamoebae are a group of protists originally thought to have evolved before the acquisition of mitochondria by eukaryotes. They include genera that are internal parasites or commensals of animals (''Entamoeba'' and '' Endolimax''). A few species are human pathogens, causing diseases such as amoebic dysentery. The other genera of archamoebae live in freshwater habitats and are unusual among amoebae in possessing flagella. Most have a single nucleus and flagellum, but the giant amoeba ''Pelomyxa'' has many of each. Description Archamoebae are a diverse group of amoebae. Many have flagella for motility, while others do not. They grow in the absence of oxygen, though some can tolerate small amounts. Most described species of Archamoebae either lack mitochondria or are described to have reduced mitosomes. Habitat They thrive and live in soil, freshwater, and marine habitats. History The group Archamoebae was proposed by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 1998 as part of the Archezoa, ...
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Archezoa
In biology, Archezoa is a term that has been introduced by several authors to refer to a group of organisms (a taxon). Authors include Josef Anton Maximilian Perty, Ernst Haeckel and in the 20th century by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in his classification system. Each author used the name to refer to different arrays of organisms. This reuse by later authors of the same taxon name for different groups of organisms is widely criticized in taxonomy because the inclusion of the name in a sentence (e.g. "Archezoa have no olfactory organs") does not make sense unless the particular usage is specified (e.g. "Archezoa ''sensu'' Cavalier-Smith (1987) have no olfactory organs"). Nonetheless, all uses of 'Archezoa' are now obsolete. Archezoa ''sensu'' Cavalier-Smith (1987) Cavalier-Smith proposed the term 'Archezoa' for a paraphyletic (see Paraphyly) territory of eukaryotes that primitively lacked mitochondria. Like Margulis and others before (see Pelomyxa), Cavalier-Smith argued that the i ...
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Mitosomes
A mitosome (also called a ''crypton'' in early literature) is a mitochondrion-related organelle (MRO) found in a variety of parasitic unicellular eukaryotes, such as members of the supergroup Excavata. The mitosome was first discovered in 1999 in ''Entamoeba histolytica,'' an intestinal parasite of humans, and mitosomes have also been identified in several species of Microsporidia and in '' Giardia intestinalis''. The mitosome has been detected only in anaerobic or microaerophilic eukaryotes which do not have fully developed mitochondria, and hence do not have the capability of gaining energy from mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. The functions of mitosomes, while varied, have not yet been well characterized, but they may be associated with sulfate metabolism and biosynthesis of phospholipids and Fe–S clusters. Mitosomes, like other MROs, likely evolved from mitochondria, based on similarities in structure, function, and biochemical signaling pathways, and may have converge ...
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Thomas Cavalier-Smith
Thomas (Tom) Cavalier-Smith, FRS, FRSC, NERC Professorial Fellow (21 October 1942 – 19 March 2021), was a professor of evolutionary biology in the Department of Zoology, at the University of Oxford. His research has led to discovery of a number of unicellular organisms (protists) and advocated for a variety of major taxonomic groups, such as the Chromista, Chromalveolata, Opisthokonta, Rhizaria, and Excavata. He was known for his systems of classification of all organisms. Life and career Cavalier-Smith was born on 21 October 1942 in London. His parents were Mary Maude (née Bratt) and Alan Hailes Spencer Cavalier Smith. He was educated at Norwich School, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (MA) in Biology and King's College London (PhD) in Zoology. He was under the supervision of Sir John Randall for his PhD thesis between 1964 and 1967; his thesis was entitled "''Organelle Development in'' Chlamydomonas reinhardii". From 1967 to 1969, Cavalier-S ...
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