Parasitic protozoa of the phylum Apicomplexa cause a range of human and animal diseases. Their complex life cycles – often heteroxenous with sexual and asexual phases in different hosts – rely on elaborate cytoskeletal structures to enable morphogenesis and motility, organize cell division, and withstand diverse environmental forces. This review primarily focuses on studies using Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium spp. as the best studied apicomplexans; however, many cytoskeletal adaptations are broadly conserved and predate the emergence of the parasitic phylum. After decades cataloguing the constituents of such structures, a dynamic picture is emerging of the assembly and maintenance of apicomplexan cytoskeletons, illuminating how they template and orient critical processes during infection. These observations impact our view of eukaryotic diversity and offer future challenges for cell biology.

蚜虫门的寄生原生动物引起多种人类和动物疾病。它们复杂的生命周期-通常与不同宿主中的性和无性阶段异质-依靠精细的细胞骨架结构来实现形态发生和运动，组织细胞分裂，并承受多种环境力。这篇评论主要侧重于使用弓形虫和疟原虫的研究spp。作为研究最好的apicomplexans；然而，许多细胞骨架的适应性被广泛保留，并早于寄生门的出现。经过数十年的分类，对这种结构的成分进行分类后，出现了有关蜂复合体细胞骨架的组装和维护的动态图片，阐明了它们在感染过程中如何模板化和定向关键过程。这些观察结果影响了我们对真核生物多样性的看法，并为细胞生物学提出了未来的挑战。