BIOL 119 Chapter Notes - Chapter 32: Lignin Peroxidase, Asexual Reproduction, Microsporidia
Document Summary
Microsporidia: single celled and parasitic on animal cells. Intracellular: unique polar tube structure, which allows them to enter cells to parasitize them. This tube shoots out of the microsporidian, and pierces the host cell"s membrane: lack functioning mitochondria. Some reproduce sexually, some produce asexually, and some need to infect hosts to complete their life cycles. Some live in mutualistic relationships within the guts of herbivorous animals to digest their food (they release celluloses that break down the cell walls of plants: chytrids have spores that swim via a agellum. Chytrids are the only fungi to display and alternation of generations. Some are parasitic, and infect other fungi, insects, or spiders: their hyphae yoke together during sexual reproduction and from a thick-walled zygosporangium. The fusion of hyphae only occurs between fungi of different mating types (increasing genetic variation in the population: asexual reproduction is very common.
