Main Content

The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 4837

Violetta A. Sopina; Polymorphism of Esterases in Free-living Amoebidae. Arch.Protistenk 144:47-53, 1994

Reprint

In File

Notes

In free-living Amoebidae the pattern of esterases examined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis is represented by multiple bands. Only slight differences have been found in the number of fast electromorphos in patterns of 7 strains attributed to Amoeba proteus: three bands in the K strain and four - in all the other strains examined (C, B, L, F, Da and Bk). In this respect, A. lescherae does not differ from the K strain, and A. discoides is identical to the other A. proteus strains studied. Together with our earlier data, this allows one to consider A. lescherae and A. discoides as strains of A. proteus, rather that separate species. Three other Amoeba species, A. borokensis, A. amazonas and A. indica, differ from A. poteus in the number of fast and/or intermediate electromorphs. In A. leningradensis, in contrast to A. proteus and other Amoeba species, one of the subgroups of slow esterases is absent. Chaos carolinense, while lacking a different slow esterase subgroup than Amoeba leningradensis, is distinguished from A. proteus and Polychaos dubium by its higher number of fast electromorphs. In P. dubium the number of both intermediate and fast electromorphs is lower than in Amoeba proteus. Thus, the analysis of electrophoretic patterns of esterases, in addition to other taxonomic criteria, proved to be useful not only for intergeneric and interspecific differentiation of free-living Amoebidae, but also for the detection of erroneously classified species and strains.