Handbook of the Protists

0485387 - BC 2018 RIV CH eng M - Monography Chapter
Votýpka, Jan - Modrý, David - Oborník, Miroslav - Šlapeta, J. - Lukeš, Julius
Apicomplexa.
Handbook of the Protists. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017 - (Archibald, J.; Simpson, A.; Slamovits, C.), s. 1-58. ISBN 978-3-319-28148-3
Institutional support: RVO:60077344
Keywords : Alveolata * Apicoplast * Endosymbiosis * Intracellular * Micronemes * Pathogens * Parasites * Protozoa * Rhoptries
OECD category: Zoology

The phylum Apicomplexa is a large group of parasitic protists with more than 6,000 described and possibly thousands of undescribed species. All species are obligatory parasites, and potentially every vertebrate and majority of invertebrates host at least one apicomplexan species. More frequently apicomplexans are specialists with rather high host specificity, nevertheless, generalists with low host specificity exist. Many species are highly pathogenic to their host including human and domestic animals and from medical perspective represent the most important eukaryotic parasites. Coccidians are omnipresent in vertebrates, e.g., virtually all poultry and rabbits are infected by several host-specific Eimeria spp., theileriosis is responsible for enormous losses in cattle farming, about 20% of global human population is infected by Toxoplasma gondii, and, finally, Plasmodium falciparum and other Plasmodium species cause globally distributed malaria, which kills millions of people in tropical countries.

Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0280424