The Cell Structures of Plant, Animal and Microbial Symbionts, Their Differences and Similarities
Organisms from different kingdoms and with different cell biologies living together in symbiosis have to solve the common problems of mutual recognition and of establishing an interchange of substances with each other. However, the different symbioses are often considered as disconnected phenomena, so that the common problems are not dealt with from a similar point of view. This leads to further problems of standardization of termin ology, for example the definition of “symbiont”, “parasite”, as well as their cell-to-cell relationships in geometrical terms.