Three-dimensional flagella structures from animals' closest unicellular relatives, the Choanoflagellates.

ABSTRACT: In most eukaryotic organisms, cilia and flagella perform a variety of life-sustaining roles related to environmental sensing and motility. Cryo-electron microscopy has provided considerable insight into the morphology and function of flagellar structures, but studies have been limited to less than a dozen of the millions of known eukaryotic species. Ultrastructural information is particularly lacking for unicellular organisms in the Opisthokonta clade, leaving a sizeable gap in our understanding of flagella evolution between unicellular species and multicellular metazoans (animals). Choanoflagellates are important aquatic heterotrophs, uniquely positioned within the opisthokonts as the metazoans' closest living unicellular relatives. We performed cryo-focused ion beam milling and cryo-elec

SUBMITTER: Pinskey JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9671500 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature