Slide 1
Kingdom Euglenozoa is a monophyletic group of flagellated organisms.
The structure of these flagella is complex so to fill in the diversity chart on ANGEL - you just need to know that these organisms have flagella as their distinguishing characteristic.
Some of the euglenozoa are free living and photosynthetic and some are important parasites of humans.
There are two main groups of organisms in this kingdom. The euglenoids and the kinetoplastids.
Slide 2
The Eugleniods are mainly photosynthetic and live in freshwater.
These organisms are believed to have evolved from an ancestor that took up a green algae by a secondary endosymbiosis. Endosymbiosis, as we have previously learned, is a common theme in evolution.
Slide 3
The second group of Euglenzoa are the kinetoplastids. These
organisms are distinguished by the presence of a kinetoplast, a DNA-containing
granule located within the single mitochondrion associated with the base of
the cell's flagella.
They are important human parasites and causes disease such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease.
Slide 4
Sleeping sickness occurs only in 36 sub-Saharan Africa countries where there are tsetse flies that can transmit the disease.
The people most exposed to the tsetse fly and therefore the disease are in rural populations dependent on agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry or hunting.
After continued control efforts, the number of cases reported in 2009 has dropped below 10,000 for first time in 50 years.
Diagnosis and treatment of the disease is complex and requires specifically skilled staff.
Slide 5
Chagas disease occurs mainly in rural Mexico, Central America, and South
America
Transmitted by insects commonly referred to as "kissing bugs".
Affects 8-10 million people/year and ~20,000 people/year die
Treatment options exist but resistance to the drugs is evolving in the kinetoplastid organisms.