Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The term sporogenesis can also refer to endospore formation in bacteria, which allows the cells to survive unfavorable conditions. Endospores are not reproductive structures and their formation does not require cell fusion or division. Instead, they form through the production of an encapsulating spore coat within the spore-forming cell.
In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual (in fungi) or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. [1] Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants , algae , fungi and protozoa . [ 2 ]
A sporangium (from Late Latin, from Ancient Greek σπορά (sporá) 'seed' and ἀγγεῖον (angeîon) 'vessel'); pl.: sporangia) [1] is an enclosure in which spores are formed. [2] It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other groups form sporangia at some point in their life cycle.
The process of endospore formation has profound morphological and physiological consequences: radical post-replicative remodelling of two progeny cells, accompanied eventually by cessation of metabolic activity in one daughter cell (the spore) and death by lysis of the other (the 'mother cell').
Four chambers (pollen sacs) lined with nutritive tapetal cells are visible by the time the microspores are produced. After meiosis, the haploid microspores undergo several changes: The microspore divides by mitosis producing two cells. The first of the cells (the generative cell) is small and is formed inside the second larger cell (the tube cell).
Figure 1. Zoospore types. The arrow indicates direction of movement. In eukaryotes, the four main types of zoospore are [3] illustrated in Fig. 1 at right: Posterior whiplash flagella are a characteristic of the Chytridiomycota, and a proposed uniting trait of the opisthokonts, a large clade of eukaryotes containing animals and fungi.
The cell walls of the ascomycetes almost always contain chitin and β-glucans, and divisions within the hyphae, called "septa", are the internal boundaries of individual cells (or compartments). The cell wall and septa give stability and rigidity to the hyphae and may prevent loss of cytoplasm in case of local damage to cell wall and cell membrane.
When a basidiospore matures, sugars present in the cell wall begin to serve as condensation loci for water vapour in the air. Two separate regions of condensation are critical. At the pointed tip of the spore (the hilum) closest to the supporting basidium, Buller's drop builds up as a large, almost spherical water droplet.