Microsporidiosis Totally Explained

Everything about Microsporidiosis totally explained

Microspridiosis is an opportunistic intestinal infection that causes diarrhea and wasting in immunocompromised individuals (HIV, for example). It results from different species of microsporidia, a group of protozoal parasites.
In HIV infected individuals, microsporidiosis generally occurs when CD4+ T cell counts fall below 100.

Causative agents

At least 14 microsporidian species have been recognized as human pathogens, spread across eight genera:

Brachiola
- B. algerae, B. connori, B. vesicularum
Encephalitozoon
- E. cuniculi, E. hellem, E. intestinalis
Enterocytozoon
- E. bieneusi
Microsporidium
- M. ceylonensis, M. africanum
Nosema
- N. ocularum
Pleistophora sp.
Trachipleistophora
- T. hominis, T. anthropophthera
Vittaforma
- V. corneae.

Life cycle

(Coded to at right).

The infective form of microsporidia is the resistant spore and it can survive for an exteneded period of time in the environment.

The spore extrudes its polar tubule and infects the host cell.

The spore injects the infective sporoplasm into the eukaryotic host cell through the polar tubule.

Inside the cell, the sporoplasm undergoes extensive multiplication either by merogony (binary fission) or schizogony (multiple fission).

This development can occur either in direct contact with the host cell cytoplasm (E. bieneusi) or inside a vacuole called a parasitophorous vacuole (E. intestinalis). Either free in the cytoplasm or inside a parasitophorous vacuole, microsporidia develop by sporogony to mature spores.

During sporogony, a thick wall is formed around the spore, which provides resistance to adverse environmental conditions. When the spores increase in number and completely fill the host cell cytoplasm, the cell membrane is disrupted and releases the spores to the surroundings.

These free mature spores can infect new cells thus continuing the cycle.Further Information

Get more info on 'Microsporidiosis'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://microsporidiosis.totallyexplained.com">Microsporidiosis Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.