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CHAPTER 28

PROTISTS

Prepared by
Brenda Leady, University of Toledo

1 reprod
Copyright (c) The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for
 Eukaryotes that are not classified in the
plant, animal, or fungal kingdoms, though
some protists are closely related to plants
or animals or fungi
 Two common characteristics
 Most abundant in moist habitats
 Most of them are microscopic in size
 Do not form monophyletic group
 Supergroups used

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Classified by ecological role
 3 major groups
 Algae – photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic
 Not monophyletic
 Protozoa – heterotrophic
 Not monophyletic
 Fungus-like – resemble fungi in body form
and absorptive nutrition
 More closely related to diatoms

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Classified by habitat
 Particularly common and diverse in
oceans, lakes, wetlands and rivers
 Plankton- swimming or floating
 Phytoplankton – photosynthetic
 Protozoan plankton – heterotrophic
 Occur primarily as single cells, colonies or
short filaments

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 Periphyton
 Attachedby mucilage to underwater surfaces
 Produce multicellular bodies
 Seaweeds

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Classified by motility
 Swim using eukaryotic flagella
 Flagellates
 Some flagellated reproductive cells
 Cilia – shorter and more abundant than flagella
 Ciliates

 Amoeboid movement – using pseudopodia


 Amoebae

 Gliding on protein or carbohydrate slime

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Supergroups
 Excavata
 Related to some of Earth’s earliest eukaryotes
 Named for a feeding groove “excavated” into
the cells of many representatives
 Food particles are taken into cells by
phagotrophy
 Endocytosis and evolutionary basis for
endosymbiosis

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 Some are parasites
 Trichomonas
vaginalis and Giardia
lamblia
 Possess highly
modified mitochondria
 Call hydrogenosomes
– produce hydrogen
gas

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Euglenozoa
 Supergroup of flagellates named for
Euglena
 Disk-shaped mitochondrial cristae
 Kinetoplastids have an unusually large
mass of DNA (kinetoplast)
 Trypansosoma brucei
 Euglenoids have unique interlocking
protein strips beneath plasma membrane
 Cancrawl through mud – euglenoid
movement or metaboly 15
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Archaeplastida
 Obtained plastids by primary
endosymbiosis
 Primary
plastids have an envelope with 2
membranes
 Red algae, green algae, Kingdom Plantae,
glaucophyta
 Based on assumption that all primary
plastids originated with a single
endosymbiotic event 17
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Alveolata
 Ciliophora
 Ciliates – conjugation
 Dinozoa
 Dinoflagellates – some photosynthetic, others
not
 Important in nearshore oceans
 Apicomplexa
 Medicallyimportant parasites
 Plasmodium
 Named for saclike membranous vesicle
(alveoli) present in cell periphery 19
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Stramenopila
 Wide range of algae, protozoa, and
fungus-like protists
 Usually produce flagellated cells at some
point
 Named for distinctive strawlike hairs on
the surface of flagella
 Plastids from secondary endosymbiosis
 More than 2 envelopes
 Originate with incorporation of a cell with a
primary plastid 21
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Rhizaria
 Have thin, hairlike extensions of the
cytoplasm called filose pseudopodia
 Chlorarachniophyta
 Radiolaria and Foraminifera
 Ocean plankton that make mineral shells
 White cliffs of Dover, England
 Foraminifera used to infer past climates

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Amoebozoa
 Many types of amoebae
 Move using pseudopodia
 Entamoeba histolytica
 Slime molds

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Opisthokonta
 Named for single posterior flagellum on
swimming cells
 Animal and fungal kingdoms
 Choanoflagellate protists
 Feature distinctive collar surrounding flagella
 Modern protists most related to the common
ancestor of animals

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4 basic types of nutrition
 Phagotrophy – heterotrophs that ingest
particles
 Osmotrophs – heterotrophs that rely on
uptake of small organic molecules
 Autotrophs – photosynthetic
 Mixotrophs – able to use autotrophy and
phagotrophy or osmotrophy depending on
conditions
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Algal photosynthetic pigments
 Variety of pigments
 Adapt photosystems to capture more light
 Water absorbs the longer red and yellow
wavelengths more than the shorter blue
and green wavelengths
 Accessory pigments absorb light and
transfer it to chlorophyll a

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Defense
 Slimy mucilage or cell walls defend
against herbivores and pathogens
 Calcium carbonate, silica, iron, manganese
armor
 Trichocysts are spear-shaped projectiles
to discourage herbivores
 Bioluminescence – startle herbivores
 Toxins – inhibit animal physiology
 Pfiesteria
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Burkholder and Colleagues Demonstrated That
Strains of the Dinoflagellate Genus Pfiesteria Are
Toxic to Mammalian Cells
 First step was to grow 2 strains of Pfiesteria
on 2 different food regimes
 Then exposed to fish to elicit toxin
production
 Last step to test against mammalian cell
cultures
 Both strains with both food regimes are
toxic
Asexual reproduction
 All protists can reproduce asexually
 Many produce cysts with thick, protective
walls that remain dormant in bad
conditions
 Many protozoan pathogens spread from
one host to another via cysts

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Sexual reproduction
 Eukaryotic sexual reproduction with
gametes and zygotes arose among the
protists
 Generally adaptive because it produces
diverse genotypes
 Zygotic and sporic life cycles

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 Zygotic life cycles
 Most unicellular sexually reproducing protists
 Haploid cells transform into gametes
 + and – mating strains
 Thick-walled diploid zygotes
 Survive like cysts

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 Sporic life cycle
 Many multicellular green and brown
seaweeds
 Also known as alternation of generations
 2 types of multicellular organisms
 Haploid gametophyte produces gametes
 Diploid sporophyte produces spores by meiosis

 Red seaweed variation involves 3 distinct


multicellular generations
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 Gametic life cycle
 Allcells except the gametes are diploid
 Gametes produced by meiosis
 Diatoms
 Asexual reproduction reduces the size of the
daughter cells
 Sexual reproduction restores maximal size

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 Ciliate sexual reproduction – Conjugation
 Most complex sexual process in protists
 Have 2 types of nuclei (single macronucleus
and one or more micronuclei)
 Macronuclei are the source of the information
for cell function
 2 cells pair and fuse – conjugation
 Micronuclei undergo meiosis, exchange,
fusion and mitosis
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Parasitic protist hosts
 Parasitic protists often using more than
one host organism, in which different life
stages occur
 Malarial parasite Plasmodium alternate
between the humans and Anopheles
mosquitoes
 Different stages in different hosts and host
tissues

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 Genomic sequences for several parasitic
protists determined
 Way to find new cellular targets to kill
parasite without harming human host
 Identify metabolic processes present in
parasite but not the host
 Plasmodium falciparum genomic data has
highlighted potential new pharmaceutical
approaches
 Enzymes in apicoplast pathways may make
good targets

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