Advances in the taxonomic study of Microsporidia

Abstract:

Microsporidia are obligate intracellular eukaryotic parasites that infect a wide variety of species, including humans. Members of this phylum have some unusual characteristics compared with other eukaryotes, including the lack of mitochondria, Golgi apparatus, peroxisomes and ?agella, which therefore led to the Archezoa hypothesis, namely the origin of the Microsporidia might have preceded the endosymbiotic origin of those cellular components. However, some recent studies have indicated that Microsporidia related to the fungi and that Microsporidia retain a mitosome which is thought to be the remnant of the mitochondria. The long-branch attraction also explains the primitive placement of Microsporidia within the eukaryotic phylogenetic tree. Here we review the microsporidian taxonomic revisions and discuss the causes and results for these study.