Opisthokont
| Opisthokont | |
|---|---|
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| Orange elephant ear sponge, Agelas clathrodes, in foreground. Two corals in the background: a sea fan, Iciligorgia schrammi, and a sea rod, Plexaurella nutans. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| (unranked): | Unikonta |
| (unranked): |
Opisthokonta Copeland 1956,emend. Cavalier-Smith 1987,emend. Adl et al. 2005 |
The opisthokonts (Greek: ὀπίσθιος (opísthios) = "rear, posterior" + κοντός (kontós) = "pole" i.e. "flagellum") are a broad group of eukaryotes, including both the animal and fungus kingdoms, together with the eukaryotic microorganisms that are sometimes grouped in the paraphyletic phylum Choanozoa (conventionally assigned to the protist "kingdom"). The opisthokonts, sometimes referred to as the "Fungi/Metazoa group", are generally recognized as a monophyletic clade.
One common characteristic of opisthokonts is that flagellate cells, such as the sperm of most animals and the spores of the chytrid fungi, 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 (see Zoospore morphological types). In some opisthokont groups, including most of the fungi, flagellate cells have been lost.
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 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 they are to plants, and plants are more closely related to the SAR supergroup of protists than they are to animals or fungi.
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