Authors

S Rueckert¹;  ¹ Department of Eukaryotic Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Germany

Discussion

The roughly 6000+ species of the phylum Apicomplexa are said to all be obligate parasitic. Some species are very well known in public as they cause notorious diseases such as Malaria, Toxoplasma, Babesiosis, etc. in humans and livestock. In addition to these (un)popular species there is a large, diverse group of apicomplexans that only infects invertebrates, the gregarines. The impact gregarines pose on their hosts vary and are spread across the spectrum of symbiosis from positive to negative. Available molecular data show that they occupy a basal phylogenetic position within the Apicomplexa, and recent transcriptomic data have shown that some previously as gregarine described species are actually close relatives to the Apicomplexa. With a vast range of techniques now available the understanding of the evolution of the Apicomplexa and close relatives with similar lifestyles has begun to unfold. To fully understand the evolution from free-living, photosynthetic algae to intracellular parasites, it is important to study the adaptations gregarine’s have undergone on the spectrum of symbiosis. Unfortunately, there is still one aspect that slows this area of research down, which is the inability to culture gregarines. We are working on and have already made progress towards the development of a gregarine culture system.