Phylum sarcomastigophora

Subphylum – sarcodina

Phylum - ciliophora
Subphylum – Sarcodina

The sarcodines
1. Sarcodines and also ciliates usually live in water or other moist environment
2. They engulf prey with pseudopods, cytoplasmic extensions formed as cytoplasm streams in
one direction
3. Amoeba proteus is a commonly studied member
4. Amoeboids phagocytize their food, pseudopods surround and engulf prey
5. Food is digested inside food vacuoles
6. Fresh water amoeboids have contractile vacuoles to eliminate excess water
7. Entamoeba histolytica is an amoebic parasite that can invade the human intestinal lining

Subphylum Sarcodina
Amoeboids are classified in a subphylum called Sarcodina, basically amoeboids move by moving
their cytoplasm, resembling limbs, to move around and engulf food particles with its cytoplasm.
Amoeboids mainly consist of contractile vacuoles a nucleus and cytoplasm as their basic structure,
as the cytoplasm surrounds the prey. It injects enzymes into the organism thus digesting their prey.

Members of this sybphylum, the amoebas & their relatives are unicellular. Some of them have shells
with their constantly changing shapes.
Ex) foraminiferan (ammonia tepida)
Chaos diffluens
Helizoan (actinophrys sol)

Amoeba & Pelomyxa move by extensions of their cytoplasm known as pseudopodia.

Pseudopodia are used by many cells and are not fixed structures are like flagella but rather are
associated with actin near the moving edge of the cytoplasm. Meiosis and sex are not known to
occur in this phylum. The organisms reproduce asexually by various mechanisms of cell division,
spindle fibers form but the typical stages of mitosis are not apparent in most amoebas.
In many genera, for instance the nuclear envelope persists during cell division. The majority of
amoebas are free-living but some are important parasites including Entamoeba histolytica which
causes amoebic dysentery in humans.

Foraminifera (forams)
- Live in the oceans and secrete a shell (a.k.a test) composed of silica or calcium carbonate.
 Thus, the fossil record of forams is quite good. Oxygen isotope data from forams has been
used to calculate ocean temperature fluctuations over the past 100,000 years

Amoebas are unicellular organisms common in the environment: many are parasites of vetebrates
and invertebrates. Amoeba reproduce by binary fission and most species are capable of forming
cysts (usually the infective stag). The feeding reproductive form is termed the trophozoites. The
most pathogenic intestinal species is Entamoeba histolytica whose trophozoites may penetrate the
intestine, enter the liver or lungs, and cause serious illness and often death.

Entamoeba gingivalis is found in the mouth of many individuals, forms no cysts but is also similar
to trophozoites of E. histolytica.
However, other intestinal amoebae that will be covered include Entamoeba coli, Endolimax nana,
and Iodamoeba buetschlii. These all form cysts and are usually only mildly-moderately pathogenic.
Dientamoeba fragilis is also intestinal and included here with the amoeba, although election
microscopy has shown that it is actually a flagellate (but forms no flagella). It may cause acute or
chronic clinical signs of intestinal distress and forms no cysts.
The most serious pathogen, fatal, infected through nasal passages is Naegleria fowleri.

Amoebae are distinguished in several ways

1. The structure of the nucleus and endosome (nucleolus)
2. The number of nuclei within the trophozoite
3. The presence or absence of glycogen in red blood cells (chromatodial barrs) within the
trophozoites
4. Whether an amoeba forms cysts or not and if so the number of nuclei in the cyst, the
morphology of the nucleus and the presence or absence of various inclusion

Relatively few species inhabit the human intestine and only Entamoeba histolytica is identified as a
human intestinal pathogen.
A second pathogen of the human colon is Dientamoeba fragilis which looks like an ameba under
light microscope.

Amoebas pathogenic to humans

l Entamoeba histolytica
l Naegleria fowleri
l Acanthamoeba
l Balamuthia mandriliaris
l Hartmannella
At least 6 forms of amoeba are parasitic in humans. Most important of these is Entamoeba histolytica
which causes amebiasis and dysentery. The diseases often occur in epidemics when raw sewage
contaminates water supplies or when soil is fertilized with untreated wastes.

Amoebic dysentery is most commonly spread by water or contaminated uncooked food or from
carriers. Flies may carry the cysts to spread the amoeba from the feces of infected persons to food.
In many publications Entamoeba histolytica is cited as infecting one tenth of the world population
or 500 million people.

Phylum Ciliophora
The ciliates
1. Phylum ciliophoran contains the ciliates
2. Ciliates move by coordinated strokes of hundreds of cilia protecting through holes in a
semirigid pellicle
3. They discharge long, barbed trichocysts for defense and for capturing prey; toxicysts
release a poison
4. Most are holozoic and ingest food through a gullet and eliminate wastes through an anal
pore
5. During asexual reproduction ciliates divide by transverse binary fission
6. Ciliates possess 2 types of nuclei—a large macronucleus and one or more small
micronuclei
A. The macronucleus controls the normal metabolism of the cell
B. The micronucleus is involved in sexual reproduction (conjugation)
i. The macronucleus disintegrates and the micronucleus undergoes meiosis
ii. Two ciliates then exchange a haploid micronucleus
iii. The micronuclei give rise to a new macronucleus containing only housekeeping
genes
7. Ciliates are diverse

These largely free-living aquatic protozoans derive their name from the many cilia distributed in
rows in bands or uniformly across the cell surface.

Ciliates are complex, heterotrophic protozoans that lack cell walls and use multiple small cilia for
locomotion. To increase strength of the cell boundary ciliates have a pellicle a sort of tougher
membrane that still allows them to change shape. Most of the 8000 species are freshwater. Most
ciliates have two nuclei: a macronucleus that contains hundreds of copies of the genome and
controls metabolisms and a single small micronucleus that contains a single copy of the genome
& functions in sexual reproduction (conjugation). Ciliates generally reproduce by binary fission,
during which the macronucleus elongates and splits rather than undergoing mitotic division.
Since ciliates (a many freshwater protozoan) are hypotonic removal of water crossing the cell
membrane by osmosis is a significant problem. One commonly employed mechanism is a contractile
vacuole.
The only important ciliate pathogen in humans is Balantidium coli, which is also commonly found
in swine & other primates. It is the largest protozoan parasites of humans and trophozoites are
oblong or spherical possess cilia and multiply by binary fission.