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Intracellular Parasite
Intracellular parasites are microparasites that are capable of growing and reproducing inside the cells of a host. Types of parasites There are two main types of intracellular parasites: Facultative and Obligate. Facultative intracellular parasites are capable of living and reproducing in or outside of host cells. Obligate intracellular parasites, on the other hand, need a host cell to live and reproduce. Many of these types of cells require specialized host types, and invasion of host cells occurs in different ways. Facultative Facultative intracellular parasites are capable of living and reproducing either inside or outside cells. Bacterial examples include: *''Bartonella henselae'' *''Francisella tularensis'' *''Listeria monocytogenes'' * ''Salmonella'' Typhi *''Brucella'' *''Legionella'' *''Mycobacterium'' *'' Nocardia'' *''Neisseria'' *''Rhodococcus equi'' *''Yersinia'' *''Staphylococcus aureus'' Fungal examples include: *''Histoplasma capsulatum''. *''Cryptococcus neofo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microparasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. One major axis of classification concerns invasiveness: an endoparasite lives inside the host's body; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasmodium
''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Parasites grow within a vertebrate body tissue (often the liver) before entering the bloodstream to infect red blood cells. The ensuing destruction of host red blood cells can result in malaria. During this infection, some parasites are picked up by a blood-feeding insect (mosquitoes in majority cases), continuing the life cycle. ''Plasmodium'' is a member of the phylum Apicomplexa, a large group of parasitic eukaryotes. Within Apicomplexa, ''Plasmodium'' is in the order Haemosporida and family Plasmodiidae. Over 200 species of ''Plasmodium'' have been described, many of which have been subdivided into 14 subgenera based on parasite morphology and host range. Evolutionary relationships among different ''Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apicomplexan
The Apicomplexa (also called Apicomplexia) are a large phylum of parasitic alveolates. Most of them possess a unique form of organelle that comprises a type of non-photosynthetic plastid called an apicoplast, and an apical complex structure. The organelle is an adaptation that the apicomplexan applies in penetration of a host cell. The Apicomplexa are unicellular and spore-forming. All species are obligate endoparasites of animals, except '' Nephromyces'', a symbiont in marine animals, originally classified as a chytrid fungus. Motile structures such as flagella or pseudopods are present only in certain gamete stages. The Apicomplexa are a diverse group that includes organisms such as the coccidia, gregarines, piroplasms, haemogregarines, and plasmodia. Diseases caused by Apicomplexa include: * Babesiosis (''Babesia'') * Malaria (''Plasmodium'') * Cryptosporidiosis (''Cryptosporidium parvum'') * Cyclosporiasis (''Cyclospora cayetanensis'') * Cystoisosporiasis (''Cystoisospora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protozoa
Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Historically, protozoans were regarded as "one-celled animals", because they often possess animal-like behaviours, such as motility and predation, and lack a cell wall, as found in plants and many algae. When first introduced by Georg Goldfuss (originally spelled Goldfuß) in 1818, the taxon Protozoa was erected as a class within the Animalia, with the word 'protozoa' meaning "first animals". In later classification schemes it was elevated to a variety of higher ranks, including phylum, subkingdom and kingdom, and sometimes included within Protoctista or Protista. The approach of classifying Protozoa within the context of Animalia was widespread in the 19th and early 20th century, but not universal. By the 1970s, it became usual to require th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phagocyte
Phagocytes are cells that protect the body by ingesting harmful foreign particles, bacteria, and dead or dying cells. Their name comes from the Greek ', "to eat" or "devour", and "-cyte", the suffix in biology denoting "cell", from the Greek ''kutos'', "hollow vessel". They are essential for fighting infections and for subsequent immunity. Phagocytes are important throughout the animal kingdom and are highly developed within vertebrates. One litre of human blood contains about six billion phagocytes. They were discovered in 1882 by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov while he was studying starfish larvae.Ilya Mechnikov retrieved on November 28, 2008. Fro ''Physiology or Medicine 1901–1921'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mycobacterium Leprae
''Mycobacterium leprae'' (also known as the leprosy bacillus or Hansen's bacillus), is one of the two species of bacteria that cause Hansen’s disease (leprosy), a chronic but curable infectious disease that damages the peripheral nerves and targets the skin, eyes, nose, and muscles. It is an acid-fast, Gram-positive, rod shaped bacterium and an obligate intracellular parasite, which means, unlike its relative ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'', it cannot be grown in cell-free laboratory media. This is likely due to gene deletion and decay that the genome of the species has experienced via reductive evolution, which has caused the bacterium to depend heavily on its host for nutrients and metabolic intermediates. It has a narrow host range and apart from humans, the only other natural hosts are nine-banded armadillo and red squirrels. The bacteria infect mainly macrophages and Schwann cells, and are typically found congregated as a palisade. ''Mycobacterium leprae'' was sensi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coxiella (bacterium)
''Coxiella'' refers to a genus of Gram-negative bacteria in the family Coxiellaceae. It is named after Herald Rea Cox (1907–1986), an American bacteriologist. It is one of the Gammaproteobacteria. ''Coxiella burnetii'' is the best known member of this genus. It is an intracellular parasite and it survives within the phagolysosomes of its host. It causes Q fever. The majority of ''Coxiella''’s described members are non pathogenic forms which are often found in ticks. Approximately two-thirds of tick species harbour ''Coxiella''-like endosymbionts required for tick survival and reproduction. Genomes of ''Coxiella''-like endosymbionts encode pathways for the biosynthesis of major B vitamins and co-factors that fit closely with the expected nutritional complements required for strict haematophagy. The experimental elimination of ''Coxiella''-like endosymbionts typically results in decreased tick survival, molting, fecundity and egg viability, as well as in physical abnormal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rickettsia
''Rickettsia'' is a genus of nonmotile, gram-negative, nonspore-forming, highly pleomorphic bacteria that may occur in the forms of cocci (0.1 μm in diameter), bacilli (1–4 μm long), or threads (up to about 10 μm long). The term "rickettsia" has nothing to do with rickets (which is a deficiency disease resulting from lack of vitamin D); the bacterial genus ''Rickettsia'' instead was named after Howard Taylor Ricketts, in honor of his pioneering work on tick-borne spotted fever. Properly, ''Rickettsia'' is the name of a single genus, but the informal term "rickettsia", plural "rickettsias", usually not capitalised, commonly applies to any members of the order Rickettsiales. Being obligate intracellular bacteria, rickettsias depend on entry, growth, and replication within the cytoplasm of living eukaryotic host cells (typically endothelial cells). Accordingly, ''Rickettsia'' species cannot grow in artificial nutrient culture; they must be grown either in tissue or embryo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chlamydia (bacterium)
''Chlamydia'' is a genus of pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria that are obligate intracellular parasites. ''Chlamydia'' infections are the most common bacterial sexually transmitted diseases in humans and are the leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide. Species include ''Chlamydia trachomatis'' (a human pathogen), '' Ch. suis'' (affects only swine), and '' Ch. muridarum'' (affects only mice and hamsters). Humans mainly contract '' Ch. trachomatis'', '' Ch. pneumoniae'', ''Ch. abortus'', and '' Ch. psittaci''. Classification Because of ''Chlamydia''s unique developmental cycle, it was taxonomically classified in a separate order. ''Chlamydia'' is part of the order Chlamydiales, family Chlamydiaceae. In the early 1990s six species of ''Chlamydia'' were known. A major re-description of the Chlamydiales order in 1999, using the then new techniques of DNA analysis, split three of the species from the genus ''Chlamydia'' and reclassified them in the then newly created genus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria are vital in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, extremophile bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide and methane, to energy. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1892 article describing a non-bacterial pathogen infecting tobacco plants and the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898,Dimmock p. 4 more than 9,000 virus species have been described in detail of the millions of types of viruses in the environment. Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most numerous type of biological entity. The study of viruses is known as virology, a subspeciality of microbiology. When infected, a host cell is often forced to rapidly produce thousands of copies of the original virus. When not inside an infected cell or in the process of infecting a cell, viruses exist in the form of independent particles, or ''virions'', consisting of (i) the genetic material, i. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
