The giardins of Giardia lamblia: genes and proteins with promise.

The unique evolutionary position of the genus Giardia recently came to light when Mitch Sogin and colleagues showed it to be the earliest diverging lineage in the eukaryotic line of descent by ribosomal RNA analysis. Similar in significance, the acquisition of a cytoskeleton was a pivotal occurrence in evolution. With an endoskeleton came an internal support structure for cells as well as the means to regulate dynamic phenomena such as muscle contraction, mitotic movement of chromosomes, ciliar and flagellar beating, and cell migration. Debra Peattie has been exploring genes that express proteins of the Giardia cytoskeleton, and from this work she presents predictions of their structure and some thoughts about their function.