Trypanosome
Encyclopedia
- This article is about the order Trypanosomatida, see also the genus TrypanosomaTrypanosomaTrypanosoma is a genus of kinetoplastids , a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. The name is derived from the Greek trypano and soma because of their corkscrew-like motion. All trypanosomes are heteroxenous and are transmitted via a vector...
.
Trypanosomatids are a group of kinetoplastid
Kinetoplastid
The kinetoplastids are a group of single-cell flagellate protozoa, including a number of parasites responsible for serious diseases in humans and other animals, as well as various forms found in soil and aquatic environments...
protozoa distinguished by having only a single flagellum
Flagellum
A flagellum is a tail-like projection that protrudes from the cell body of certain prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and plays the dual role of locomotion and sense organ, being sensitive to chemicals and temperatures outside the cell. There are some notable differences between prokaryotic and...
. The name is derived from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
trypano (borer) and soma (body) because of the corkscrew-like motion of some trypanosomatid species. All members are exclusively parasitic, found primarily in insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s. A few genera have life-cycles involving a secondary host, which may be a vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
, invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
or plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
. These include several species that cause major diseases in humans.
The three major human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
diseases caused by trypanosomatids are; African trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. Approximately 500,000 men, women and children in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa suffer from human African trypanosomiasis which is caused by...
(Sleeping Sickness, caused by Trypanosoma brucei
Trypanosoma brucei
Trypanosoma brucei is a parasitic protist species that causes African trypanosomiasis in humans and nagana in animals in Africa. There are 3 sub-species of T. brucei: T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense.These obligate parasites have two hosts - an insect vector and mammalian host...
), South American trypanosomiasis (Chagas Disease
Chagas disease
Chagas disease is a tropical parasitic disease caused by the flagellate protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. T. cruzi is commonly transmitted to humans and other mammals by an insect vector, the blood-sucking insects of the subfamily Triatominae most commonly species belonging to the Triatoma, Rhodnius,...
, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi
Trypanosoma cruzi
Trypanosoma cruzi is a species of parasitic euglenoid trypanosomes. This species causes the trypanosomiasis diseases in humans and animals in America...
), and leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by protozoan parasites that belong to the genus Leishmania and is transmitted by the bite of certain species of sand fly...
(a set of trypanosomal diseases caused by various species of Leishmania
Leishmania
Leishmania is a genus of Trypanosomatid protozoa, and is the parasite responsible for the disease leishmaniasis. It is spread through sandflies of the genus Phlebotomus in the Old World, and of the genus Lutzomyia in the New World. Their primary hosts are vertebrates; Leishmania commonly infects...
).
The family is known from fossils of the extinct genus Paleoleishmania
Paleoleishmania
Paleoleishmania is an extinct genus of kinetoplastid , a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa and at present it's placed in kinetoplastid family Trypanosomatidae...
preserved in Burmese amber dating to the Albian
Albian
The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch/series. Its approximate time range is 112.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 99.6 ± 0.9 Ma...
(100 mya) and Dominican amber
Dominican amber
Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic. Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in the tropics....
from the Burdigalian
Burdigalian
The Burdigalian is, in the geologic timescale, an age or stage in the early Miocene. It spans the time between 20.43 ± 0.05 Ma and 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma...
(20-15 mya) of Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
. The genus Trypanosoma
Trypanosoma
Trypanosoma is a genus of kinetoplastids , a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. The name is derived from the Greek trypano and soma because of their corkscrew-like motion. All trypanosomes are heteroxenous and are transmitted via a vector...
is also represented in Dominican amber in the extinct species Trypanosoma antiquus
Trypanosoma antiquus
Trypanosoma antiquus is an extinct species of kinetoplastid , a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa....
.
Life cycle
Some trypanosomatids only occupy a single hostHost (biology)
In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna...
, while many others heteroxenous: they live in more than one host species over their life cycle. This typically includes the intestine
Intestine
In human anatomy, the intestine is the segment of the alimentary canal extending from the pyloric sphincter of the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine...
of a bloodsucking insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
and the blood and/or tissues of a vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
. Rarer hosts include other bloodsucking invertebrates such as leech
Leech
Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways...
es and plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s. Different species go through a range of different morphologies at different stages of the life cycle, most have at least two different morphologies. Typically the promastigote and epimastigote forms are found in insect hosts, trypomastigote forms in the mammalian bloodstream and amastigotes in intracellular
Intracellular
Not to be confused with intercellular, meaning "between cells".In cell biology, molecular biology and related fields, the word intracellular means "inside the cell".It is used in contrast to extracellular...
environments.
Morphologies
A variety of different morphological forms appear in the life cycles of trypanosomatids, distinguished mainly by the position, length and the cell body attachment of the flagellumFlagellum
A flagellum is a tail-like projection that protrudes from the cell body of certain prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and plays the dual role of locomotion and sense organ, being sensitive to chemicals and temperatures outside the cell. There are some notable differences between prokaryotic and...
. The kinetoplast
Kinetoplast
A kinetoplast is a disk-shaped mass of circular DNA inside a large mitochondrion that contains many copies of the mitochondrial genome. Kinetoplasts are only found in protozoa of the class Kinetoplastida...
is found closely associated with the basal body
Basal body
A basal body is an organelle formed from a centriole, and a short cylindrical array of microtubules. It is found at the base of a eukaryotic undulipodium and serves as a nucleation site for the growth of the axoneme microtubules...
at the base of the flagellum and all species of trypanosomatid have a single nucleus. Most of these morphologies can be found as a life cycle stage in all trypanosomatid genera however certain morphologies are particularly common in a particular genus. The various morphologies were originally named from the genus where the morphology was commonly found, although this terminology is now rarely used because of potential confusion between morphologies and genus. Modern terminology is derived from the Greek; "mastig", meaning whip (referring to the flagellum), and a prefix which indicates the location of the flagellum on the cell. For example the amastigote (prefix "a-", meaning no flagellum) form is also known as the leishmanial form as all Leishmania have an amastigote life cycle stage.
- Amastigote (leishmanial). Amastigotes are a common morphology during an intracellular lifecycle stage in a mammalian host. All Leishmania have an amastigote stage of the lifecycle. Leishmania amastigoes are particularly small and are among the smallest eukaryotic cells. The flagellum is very short, projecting only slightly beyond the flagellar pocket.
- Promastigote (leptomonad). The promastigote form is a common morphology in the insect host. The flagellum is found anterior of nucleus and flagellum not attached to the cell body. The kinetoplast is located in front of the nucleus, near the anterior end of the body.
- Epimastigote (crithidial). Epimastigotes are a common form in the insect host and Crithidia and Blastocrithidia, both parasites of insects, exhibit this form during their life cycles. The flagellum exits the cell anterior of nucleus and is connected to the cell body for part of its length by an undulating membrane. The kinetoplast is located between the nucleus and the anterior end.
- Trypomastigote (trypanosomal). This stage is characteristic of the genus Trypanosoma in the mammalian host bloodstream as well as infective metacyclic stages in the fly vector. In trypomastigotes the kinetoplastKinetoplastA kinetoplast is a disk-shaped mass of circular DNA inside a large mitochondrion that contains many copies of the mitochondrial genome. Kinetoplasts are only found in protozoa of the class Kinetoplastida...
is near the posterior end of the body, and the flagellum lies attached to the cell body for most of its length by an undulating membrane.
- Opisthomastigote (herpetomonad). A rarer morphology where the flagellum posterior of nucleus, passing through a long groove in the cell.
Other features
Notable characteristics of trypanosomatids are the ability to perform trans-splicingTrans-splicing
Trans-splicing is a special form of RNA processing in eukaryotes where exons from two different primary RNA transcripts are joined end to end and ligated....
of RNA and possession glycosomes where much of glycolysis
Glycolysis
Glycolysis is the metabolic pathway that converts glucose C6H12O6, into pyruvate, CH3COCOO− + H+...
is confined to. The acidocalcisome
Acidocalcisome
Acidocalcisomes are rounded electron-dense acidic organelles, rich in calcium and polyphosphate and between 100 nm and 200 nm in diameter....
organelle
Organelle
In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit within a cell that has a specific function, and is usually separately enclosed within its own lipid bilayer....
was first identified in trypanosomes.
External links
- Trykipedia, Trypanosomatid specific ontologies
- Tree of Life: Trypanosomatida