MCB 150 Lecture Hand-out# 6:

EUKARYA

Phylogenetic tree of Eukarya

No primitive branches and no known deep branches

Phylogenetic groups:

Protozoa - represents much of the diversity found in domain Eukarya

- wide range of morphologies and habitats

Diplomonads and Parabasalids

- unicellular
- flagellated
- lack chloroplasts
- possess reduced or degenerated mitochondria
- found in anoxic habitats (animal intestines)

Diplomonads
- binucleated
- mitosomes: reduced mitochondria

Parabasalids
- hydrogenosomes: degenerated mitochondria
- for anaerobic metabolism
 Euglenozoans
- unicellular, flagellated: with crystalline rod
- parasitic or free-living phototrophs or chemoorganotrophs

Euglenids
- photosynthetic (with chloroplasts)
- can grow heterotrophically or phagotrophically
- aquatic habitats

Kinetoplastids
- kinetoplast: mass of DNA in single, large mitochondrion
- parasitic or free-living in aquatic habitats
- with complex life cycles

Alveolates
- alveoli: sacs underneath cell membrane
a. Ciliates
- cilia: for motility
- two kinds of nuclei
- Some members are:
hosts to prokaryotic endosymbionts
living as commensals (termite hindgut) or symbionts (rumen) of animals parasites

b. Dinoflagellates
- photosynthetic
- aquatic habitats
- symbiotic with animals of coral reefs or free-living
- cause red tides (Gonyaulax)

c. Apicomplexans
- obligate animal parasites

Stramenopiles
- flagella with short, hairlike extensions
a. Oomycetes
- water molds
- grow as a mass of hyphae on decomposing organic matter in aquatic habitats
Ex. Phytophthora: late blight disease of potatoes

b. Diatoms
- unicellular
- phototrophs in aquatic habitats
- with frustule

c. Golden Algae
- unicellular, some colonial
- phototrophs in aquatic habitats
- golden brown color
 Amoebozoa
- pseudopodia: motility and feeding

Gymnamoeba
- free-living

Entamoeba
- animal parasites
- oral cavity or intestinal tract

Slime molds
- amoeboid soil organisms
- can be classified into two different groups:

a. Cellular slime molds

- Vegetative cells are individual, independent cells
- Cells aggregate into stalked fruiting body

b. Acellular or Plasmodial
- vegetative forms are masses of protoplasm

Fungi - chemoorganotrophs; obtain nutrition by absorption

- rigid chitinous walls
- diverse reproductive strategies and mechanisms of resisting dessication
- of two types: unicellular yeasts
Multicellular molds
Algae
- oxygenic phototrophs (endosymbiosis with engulfed cyanobacterium)

Green algae
- chloroplasts with Chl a and b
- freshwater, marine, soil or snow
- symbionts in lichen
- endolithic

Red algae
- chloroplasts with Chl a, phycoerythrin and phycobiliproteins
- marine, freshwater, terrestrial

Eukaryotic Evolution
Characteristics of early eukaryote
- nucleated cells without cell walls
- no mitochondrion
- anaerobic
- thermophilic
 Endosymbiosis Theory

Archaezoans (Diplomonads, Parabasalids) = no mitochondria

- genes of mitochondrial origin have been identified within the nucleus

- mitosomes are relic mitochondria
- hydrogenosomes are actually degenerate mitochondria

The ancestors of these organisms USED TO HAVE mitochondria but eventually lost it
through degeneration