E. bangladeshi E. bovis E. chattoni E. coli E. dispar E. ecuadoriensis E. equi E. gingivalis E. hartmanni E. histolytica E. insolita E. invadens E. moshkovskii E. muris E. nuttalli E. polecki E. ranarum E. struthionis E. suis E. terrapinae Entamoeba is a genus of Amoebozoa found as internal parasites or commensals of animals.

[2] Lösch's organism was renamed Entamoeba histolytica by Fritz Schaudinn in 1903; he later died, in 1906, from a self-inflicted infection when studying this amoeba.

In contrast to other species, E. invadens forms cysts in vitro in the absence of bacteria and is used as a model system to study this aspect of the life cycle.

[4] This group also includes Endolimax and Iodamoeba, which also live in animal intestines and are similar in appearance to Entamoeba, although this may partly be due to convergence.

Studying Entamoeba invadens, David Biron of the Weizmann Institute of Science and coworkers found that about one third of the cells are unable to separate unaided and recruit a neighboring amoeba (dubbed the "midwife") to complete the fission.

Since E. histolytica does not form cysts in vitro in the absence of bacteria, it is not possible to study the differentiation process in detail in that species.

Instead the differentiation process is studied using E. invadens, a reptilian parasite that causes a very similar disease to E. histolytica and which can be induced to encyst in vitro.

[12] The DNA pairing and strand exchange reactions are enhanced by the eukaryotic meiosis-specific recombination accessory factor (heterodimer) Hop2-Mnd1.

[12] Studies of E. invadens found that, during the conversion from the tetraploid uninucleate trophozoite to the tetranucleate cyst, homologous recombination is enhanced.