Key stuff - Protists and Amoebae Flashcards
What are protists
eukaryotes
majority are single celled
Cytoskeleton
for trafficking organelles
allow movement of organelles to correct ares, specific areas.
(tubular, actin, throughout cytoplasm)
Photoautotrophic protists
contain plastids (green, red or golden)
green plastid = chloroplast
photosynthesis
Termed ‘Algae’ (some have a cell wall)
Heterotrophic protists
feed on bacteria, fungi and other protists
termed ‘Protozoa’ (‘first animals’) (none have a cell wall)
Bacteria is ‘favourite’ prey.
Mixotrophic bacteria
Feed on bacteria, fungi and other protists and photosynthesise (none have a cell wall)
Direct microscopic count.
easy and fast
Uses special microscope counting slide
-does not differentiate between live and dead bacteria
motile protists have to be killed as easier to count.
Same population growth curve. as bacteria:
Lag phase- Time interval between inoculation and maximal division rate: cells adjust to new environment.
Log phase- constant doubling time, growth rate is maximal
stationary phase- can no longer reproduce but are still alive (e.g no food left)
death (decline) phase- death or cyst formation.
Cysts
Produced under unfavourable conditions
highly resistant to heat, drying and radiation.
very low water content
can survive for 20 years I the environment
good resistance to antibiotics/disinfectants
effective dispersal mechanism (can be transmitted to others via faeces)
Cell walls of protists
Always present in:
non-motile photosynthetic protists
cysts (even if protist that produced them does not have a cell wall)
Not present in:
motile photosynthetic protists
heterotrophic protists
mixotrophic protists
Temperature cut off
60
Oxygen and protist growth
Obligate aerobes
Obligate anaerobes
‘jury’ is out to whether we have microaerophillic eukaryotes (current investigation)
Respiration
Aerobic - mitochondria
anaerobic- hydrogenosomes
(pyruvate to H2, acetate, co2)
What became a mitochondrion after endosymbiosis?
alpha-proteobacterium
hydrogenosome evolved from mitochondria
What became chloroplasts after endosymbiosis
cyanobacterium
Food vacuole (phagosome) dynamics in protists
only certain part of membrane used for feeding.
bacterium to receptors, then phagocytosis stuff, membrane recycling
soluble and insoluble debris released by exocytosis.
if food escapes, it will take membrane of phagosome. will have 2 membranes.
Organellar mixotrophy
-eats algal cells
-does not digest plastids (kleptoplastids)
-plastids fix co2
-plastids do not encode for polymerases
-die and need replenishing (so eats more)
-protist can live without the plastids
-ciliates and amoebae
cellular mixotrophy
-eats algal cells
-no digestion oof algae
-algae fix co2
-algae divide in cell
-protist can live without the algae
constitutive mixotrophs
over time and through complicated genetic transfer events
endosymbiotic algae become true organelles
only seen in flagellates
Ciliates
covered in cilia
most developed protozoan
cytosine (mouth)
cytoproct (anus)
Two types of nucleus:
-macronucleus
-micronuclei
Cilia
Microtuble-based hair-like organelles
used for movement
-go back and forward
-some fuse to form ‘cirri’
very important for feeding
-direct prey towards the mouth are (‘cytostome’
-cytostome contains stiffer cilia (‘membranelles’)
-sieve- correct sized prey enter food vacuoles
-‘filter feeding’
Motile cilia
9+2, dyne motor protein
ciliates
humans (bronchial and oviduct epithelium)
non-motile cilium
9+0, no dyne motor protein
‘primary cilium’ on all human cells.