Apicomplexa

American  

[ay-puh-kuhm-plek-suh] / ˌeɪ pə kəmˈplɛk sə /

noun

1. Microbiology. a large phylum of diverse parasitic protists whose unique motility involves gliding across surfaces and migrating into host tissues, where their invasion of host cells can cause any of a number of diseases, including malaria and toxoplasmosis, to develop. Also classified, especially formerly, as the phylum Sporozoa.

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Example Sentences

Photosynthetic relatives of the Apicomplexa have also been discovered in marine environments7.

From Nature

Phylogenetic trees that map how the organisms containing ARL-V and type-N DNA are related to known microbes suggest that these organisms belong to the Apicomplexa.

From Nature

But how do the elusive microbes that contain ARL-V and type-N DNA fit into this picture, and what can they tell us about coral ecosystems and the evolutionary history of the Apicomplexa?

From Nature

This revealed a peculiar evolutionary placement: corallicolids are more closely related to terrestrial than to previously identified marine Apicomplexa.

From Nature

The evolutionary origin of plastids in the Apicomplexa is poorly understood.

From Nature