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(Redirected from Opistokonta)
Group of eukaryotes which includes animals and fungi, among other groups
A common characteristic of opisthokonts is that flagellate cells, such as the sperm of most animals and the spores of the chytridfungi, propel themselves with a single posterior flagellum. It is this feature that gives the group its name. In contrast, flagellate cells in other eukaryote groups propel themselves with one or more anterior flagella. Flagellate cells however have been secondarily lost in some opisthokont groups, including most of the fungi.
Opisthokont characteristics include synthesis of extracellular chitin in exoskeleton, cyst/spore wall, or cell wall of filamentous growth and hyphae; the extracellular digestion of substrates with osmotrophic absorption of nutrients; and other cell biosynthetic and metabolic pathways. Genera at the base of each clade are amoeboid and phagotrophic.
History
The close relationship between animals and fungi was suggested by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 1987, who used the informal name opisthokonta (the formal name has been used for the chytrids by Copeland in 1956), and was supported by later genetic studies.
Early phylogenies placed fungi near the plants and other groups that have mitochondria with flat cristae, but this character varies. More recently, it has been said that holozoa (animals) and holomycota (fungi) are much more closely related to each other than either is to plants, because opisthokonts have a triple fusion of carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, dihydroorotase, and aspartate carbamoyltransferase that is not present in plants, and plants have a fusion of thymidylate synthase and dihydrofolate reductase not present in the opisthokonts. Animals and fungi are also more closely related to amoebas than to plants, and plants are more closely related to the SAR supergroup of protists than to animals or fungi. Animals and fungi are both heterotrophs, unlike plants, and while fungi are sessile like plants, there are also sessile animals.
Cavalier-Smith and Stechmann argue that the uniciliate eukaryotes such as opisthokonts and Amoebozoa, collectively called unikonts, split off from the other biciliate eukaryotes, called bikonts, shortly after they evolved.
Taxonomy
Opisthokonts are divided into Holomycota or Nucletmycea (fungi and all organisms more closely related to fungi than to animals) and Holozoa (animals and all organisms more closely related to animals than to fungi); no opisthokonts basal to the Holomycota/Holozoa split have yet been identified. The Opisthokonts was largely resolved by Torriella et al. Holomycota and Holozoa are composed of the following groups.
Ichthyophonida (formerly considered parasitic fungi incertae sedis)
Phylogeny
The following phylogenetic tree indicates the evolutionary relationships between the different opisthokont lineages, and the time divergence of the clades in millions of years ago (Mya).
^ Rayner, Alan D. M., ed. (1987). "The origin of fungi and pseudofungi". Evolutionary biology of Fungi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 339–353. ISBN0-521-33050-5. OL2936766W.
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Nuclearia (Nucleariida)
Rozella sp. (Rozellida)
Microsporidian spore (Microsporidia)
Chytrid (flagellated fungus)
Sphaeroforma sp. (Mesomycetozoea)
Ministeria sp. (Filasterea)
Capsaspora sp. (Filasterea)
Salpingoeca (Choanoflagellatea)
Desmarella sp. colony (Choanoflagellatea)
Two opisthokonts: a human (Metazoa) and a mushroom (Fungi)
