SummaryAny discussion of the origin of Metazoa during the last 150 years and particularly in the recent years when the sister relationship of choanoflagellates and Metazoa was unambiguously shown by molecular phylogeny refers to the similarity of sponge choanocytes to choanoflagellates. These two types of collared radially symmetric cells are superficially similar with respect to the presence of microvilli around a single flagellum and flat mitochondrial cristae which are common for many eukaryotes. But a comparison of the most informative structure having a stable phylogenetic signal, the flagellar apparatus or kinetid, has been neglected. The kinetid is well studied in choanoflagellates and is rather uniform, but in choanocytes this structure has been investigated in the last five years and is represented by several types of kinetids. Here we review the kinetid structure in choanocytes of Porifera to establish the most conservative type of kinetid in this phylum. The detailed comparison of this kinetid with the flagellar apparatus of choanoflagellates demonstrates their fundamental difference in many respects. The choanocyte kinetid contains more features which can be considered plesiomorphic for the opisthokonts than the kinetid of the choanoflagellates. Therefore, the hypothesis about the origin of Porifera, and consequently of all Metazoa directly from choanoflagellate-like unicellular organism is not confirmed by their kinetid structure.
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.