endosymbiont
(noun)
an organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism
Examples of endosymbiont in the following topics:
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Genome Reduction
- These organelles are descended from endosymbionts, which can only survive within the host cell and which the host cell likewise needs for survival.
- A common explanation for these keen manipulative abilities is the compact and efficient genomic structure consistently found in obligate endosymbionts.
- One obligate endosymbiont of psyllid, Candidatus Carsonella ruddii, has the smallest genome currently known among cellular organisms at 160kb.
- The reductive evolution model has been proposed as an effort to define the genomic commonalities seen in all obligate endosymbionts.
- Based on this model, it is clear that endosymbionts face different adaptive challenges than free-living species.
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The Evolution of Plastids
- There is also, as with the case of mitochondria, strong evidence that many of the genes of the endosymbiont transferred to the nucleus.
- This leads to the question of the possibility of a cell containing an endosymbiont to become engulfed itself, resulting in a secondary endosymbiosis .
- Some of the major groups of algae became photosynthetic by secondary endosymbiosis; that is, by taking in either green algae or red algae as endosymbionts.
- The chloroplasts contained within the green algal endosymbionts are capable of photosynthesis, making chlorarachniophytes photosynthetic.
- The green algal endosymbiont also exhibits a stunted vestigial nucleus.
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Endophytes and Plants
- An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life without causing apparent disease.
- An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life without causing apparent disease .
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Endosymbiosis and the Evolution of Eukaryotes
- Christian de Duve proposed that they may have been the first endosymbionts, allowing cells to withstand growing amounts of free molecular oxygen in the earth's atmosphere.
- It is believed that over millennia these endosymbionts transferred some of their own DNA to the host cell's nucleus during the evolutionary transition from a symbiotic community to an instituted eukaryotic cell (called "serial endosymbiosis").
- The cyanobacterial endosymbiont already had a double membrane.
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Sea Coral and Sea Anemone Zooxanthellae
- The term was loosely used to refer to any golden-brown endosymbionts, including diatoms and other dinoflagellates.
- Symbiodinium are known primarily for their role as mutualistic endosymbionts.
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Genome Evolution
- Another beautiful example are endosymbiont species.
- For instance, Polynucleobacter necessarius was first described as a cytoplasmic endosymbiont of the ciliate Euplotes aediculatus.
- The latter species dies soon after being cured of the endosymbiont.
- The endosymbionts have a significantly reduced genome when compared to their free-living relatives (1.56 Mbp vs. 2.16 Mbp).
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Endosymbiotic Theory and the Evolution of Eukaryotes
- This occurs when one species is taken inside the cytoplasm of another species, which ultimately results in a genome consisting of genes from both the endosymbiont and the host.
- This mechanism is an aspect of the Endosymbiont Theory, which is accepted by a majority of biologists as the mechanism whereby eukaryotic cells obtained their mitochondria and chloroplasts.
- The double membrane would be a direct result of endosymbiosis, with the endosymbiont picking up the second membrane from the host as it was internalized.
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Epsilonproteobacteria
- A member of the class Epsilonproteobacteria occurs as an endosymbiont in the large gills of the deep water sea snail Alviniconcha hessleri.
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Gammaproteobacteria
- Phylogenetically, in the Enterobacteriales, several peptidoglycan-less insect endosymbionts form a sister clade to the Enterobacteriaceae, but since they are not validly described, this group is not officially a taxon; examples of these species are Sodalis, Buchnera, Wigglesworthia, Baumannia and Blochmannia.
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Verrucomicrobia
- A number of as-yet uncultivated species have been identified in association with eukaryotic hosts including extrusive explosive ectosymbionts of protists and endosymbionts of nematodes residing in their gametes.