Abstract:

Mitochondria are ubiquitous organelles in all eukaryotic cells which are essential for a series of cellular processes and signal transduction. The phylum Apicomplexa includes series of unicellular eukaryotes and some of them are clinically or economically important parasites. Recent studies have demonstrated that apicomplexan parasites′ mitochondrial genomes exhibit remarkably diverse structures and they are ideal biological models to comprehend the evolution of mitochondrial genomes. This paper summarizes the mitochondrial genome structure of some representative apicomplexan, highlights their structure characteristics along with evolution process， and briefly describes their nuclear mitochondrial DNA and nuclear plastid DNA.

Key words: Apicomplexa, Parasite, Mitochondrial genome