Abstract
Amoebae and flagellates have long been known to be associated with both extracellular and intracellular symbionts (Hall, 1969; Kirby, 1941 a; Lee et al., 1985). The presence of prokaryotic symbionts on and in flagellates and in some amoebae, as observed by light microscopy, was reported by several authors during the late 1800s and the early part of this century, as was comprehensively reviewed by Kirby (1941a). Symbiont-bearing flagellates were chiefly found in termite guts, and only a few free-living flagellates were found to have adhering symbionts. Hall (1969) extensively reviewed the literature on symbionts of protozoa published since 1941. Both in flagellates and amoebae, the suspected presence of some of the small bacterial symbionts had to be confirmed later by more sophisticated methods such as electron microscopy and specific staining.
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Jeon, K.W. (1992). Prokaryotic Symbionts of Amoebae and Flagellates. In: Balows, A., Trüper, H.G., Dworkin, M., Harder, W., Schleifer, KH. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2191-1_51
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