Progress of protozoological studies in China: Hot spots and new patterns

Abstract

Protozoa are animal-like unicellular eukaryotes. They are not only cells but also independent organisms, with highly specialized cellular structures, physiological traits and unique phylogenetic positions, as well as strong relationships with the environment, natural resources, and human and animal protozoan parasitic diseases. Because of these characteristics, protozoa have long been considered important models in fundamental biological studies, such as cell biology, genetics, evolution, and applied fields, i.e., environmental biology, protozoan parasitic diseases’ treatment and prevention, as well as agriculture. In the past 50 years, protozoological studies in China, which started from traditional taxonomy, parasitology and ecology, have gradually advanced to most subdisciplines of biology, with systematic and in-depth studies. We have been focusing on and making considerable progress in biodiversity and systematics, epigenetics, cell biology and comparative genomics of marine ciliates, immunology, epidemiology and pathology of parasitic protozoa, evolutionary biology of flagellates and apicalcomplexa, and ecology of ciliated and amoeboid protozoa, with some of the studies leading the research field. This review briefly describes the recent progress in major protozoology laboratories in China, introduces research hotspots and key questions, and provides future research plans.