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. 2009 Sep;5(9):e1000489.
doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000489. Epub 2009 Sep 25.

Five questions about microsporidia

Patrick Keeling  1
Affiliations

Five questions about microsporidia

Patrick Keeling. PLoS Pathog. 2009 Sep.
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Light micrograph of Antonospora locustae with pressure-induced polar tube eversion.
The scale bar is 10 um. (A) Many ungerminated spores (one example labeled U) and a few germinated spores, showing the residual spore wall (one example labeled G). (B) A germinated spore where the everted polar tube (PT) has extended far from the cell and can be seen to be many times the length of the spore.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Timeline of the changing taxonomic position of microsporidia, from their discovery in 1857 to the present.
When first described in 1857, they were classified as schizomycete fungi. Later they were consisdered sporozoan protists (and more specifically members of the subgroup Cnidosporidia), a position favoured for over 100 years. In 1983 a new hypothesis radically departed from this idea, suggesting they were an ancient, primitive lineage that evolved before the origin of mitochondria. Molecular data originally supported this possibility, but as data accumulated, it became clear that they were in reality highly reduced fungi, a conclusion broadly supported by the genomic data now available, although their exact relationship to fungi remains contentious.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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