Plasmodium tenue

Plasmodium tenue
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Protista
Phylum: Apicomplexa
Class: Aconoidasida
Order: Haemosporida
Family: Plasmodiidae
Genus: Plasmodium
Species: P. tenue
Binomial name
Plasmodium tenue

Plasmodium tenue is a parasite of the genus Plasmodium subgenus Novyella.

This species is unusual in that the same specific name was used in two distinct papers published in the same year. It is currently thought that the species description by Stephens in man is likely to have been an artifact and that the accepted valid species is the one described from birds.

This name still occurs in the literature for species found in humans that look atypical.[1]

Further adding to the confusion concerning this species, it is sometimes referred to as Plasmodium tenuis

Description

This species was first described by Stephens in 1914.[2] The same name was used by Laveran and Marullaz also in 1914 [3] which described this species in a babbler (Leiothrix lutea).

The bird species usually produces 4 merozoites per segmenter, but often as many as 6; rarely it gives rise to only 2 - 3.

The gametocytes are elongate.

Neither sexual nor asexual stages displace the host cell nucleus.

It is a member of the subgenus Novyella.

Clinical features and host pathology

The known hosts of this species include the babblers Leiothrix lutea and Garrulax canorus taewanus.

References

  1. Kawamoto F, Win TT, Mizuno S, Lin K, Kyaw O, Tantulart IS, Mason DP, Kimura M, Wongsrichanalai C. (2002) Unusual plasmodium malariae-like parasites in southeast Asia. J. Parasitol. 88(2):350-357
  2. Stephens, J. W. W. (1914) A new malarial parasite of man. Ann. Trop. Med. Parasit. viii, 119.
  3. Laveran, A. and Marullaz, M. (1914) Sur deux hemamibes et un toxoplasme du Liothrix luteus. Bull. Soc. Path. Exot. 7, 21–25.