Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of a layer of flagellated cells lining the body cavity of a sponge and characterized by a collar of cytoplasm surrounding the flagellum.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One of the collared and flagellated monadiform cells of sponges: so called from their great resemblance to choanoflagellate infusorians. Such cells form layers lining the flagellated endodermal chambers of sponges.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun any of the flagellated cells in sponges having a collar of cytoplasm around base of the flagellum; they maintain a flow of water through the body.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun any of the
cells insponges that contain aflagellum , and are used to control the movement of water
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of the flagellated cells in sponges having a collar of cytoplasm around the flagellum; they maintain a flow of water through the body
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Greek khoanē, funnel (from khein, to pour; see gheu- in Indo-European roots) + –cyte.]
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Examples
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Amazingly, half of the sponge's choanocyte (filtration) cells had divided and the choanocyte's cell division cycle was a phenomenally short 5.4 hours.
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Lapebie P, Renard E, Bezac C, Boury-Esnault N, et al. (2008) NK homeobox genes with choanocyte-specific expression in homoscleromorph sponges.
PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Pascal Lapébie et al. 2009
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