Plasmodium chabaudi

Plasmodium chabaudi is a parasite of the genus Plasmodium subgenus Vinckeia. As in all Plasmodium species, P. chabaudi has both vertebrate and insect hosts. The vertebrate hosts for this parasite are rodents.[1]

Plasmodium chabaudi
Scientific classification
(unranked): Diaphoretickes
Clade: TSAR
Clade: SAR
Infrakingdom: Alveolata
Phylum: Apicomplexa
Class: Aconoidasida
Order: Haemospororida
Family: Plasmodiidae
Genus: Plasmodium
Subgenus: Vinckeia
Species:
P. chabaudi
Binomial name
Plasmodium chabaudi
Landau, 1965
Subspecies
  • Plasmodium chabaudi adami
  • Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi

Taxonomy

This species was described in 1965 by Irène Landau.[2] It is named after the French parasitologist Alain Chabaud.

Subspecies

Two subspecies have been defined: P. chabaudi chabaudi and P. chabaudi adami.[3]

Genome

The nuclear genome is 18.8 megabases in size with a karyotype of 14 chromosomes. The G+C content is ~23%. A genome sequencing project is underway.

Distribution

P. chabaudi is found in Africa. It was first isolated from the blood of a shining thicket rat (Thamnomys rutilans) in the Central African Republic.[4]

Hosts

While it is difficult to study P. chabaudi in its natural host given the difficulty of taming the thicket rat, it has been studied extensively in laboratory mice, largely using the clone P. chabaudi chabaudi (AS). The pathology resembles that of human malaria in that animals are susceptible to parasite growth and pathology such as anemia, hypoglycemia, changes in body temperature, weight loss, and occasional death. The other cloned strains vary in growth rates and virulence.[5] One unique feature of this species is its prolonged course of infection. While it seems to persist for years in the thicket rat, P. chabaudi (AS) lasts up to three months in BALB/c or C57Bl/6 mice [6] P. falciparum has been observed to persist for up to a year,[7] and even in conditions of drought when there are no new infections.[8] Other species that are used to model human infection do not have this property. The other unique properties of this parasite are that it is synchronous, as first described for malaria by Galen, and that it prefers to infect normocytes, similar to P. falciparum, the most virulent human parasite, while several of the other rodent parasites have a preference for immature red blood cells, or reticulocytes, which they share with P. vivax.

References
  1. Hoffman, Stephen P. (1996). Malaria Vaccine Development: A Multi-Immune Response Approach. American Society Microbiology. ISBN 978-1-55581-111-2.
  2. Landau I (1965). "Description de Plasmodium chabaudi n. sp., parasite de rongeurs africains". C. R. Acad. Sci. 260: 3758–3761.
  3. Carter, R.; Walliker, D. (1976). "Malaria parasites of rodents of the Congo (Brazzaville): Plasmodium chabaudi adami subsp. nov. and Plasmodium vinckei lentum Landau, Michel, Adam and Boulard, 1970". Annales de Parasitologie Humaine et Comparée. 51 (6): 637–646. doi:10.1051/parasite/1976516637. ISSN 0003-4150.
  4. Landau I, Killick-Kendrick R (1966). "Rodent plasmodia of the République Centrafricaine: the sporogony and tissue stages of Plasmodium chabaudi and P. berghei yoelii". Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 60 (5): 633–49. doi:10.1016/0035-9203(66)90010-1. PMID 4163669.
  5. Stephens R, Culleton RL, Lamb TJ (Feb 2012). "The contribution of Plasmodium chabaudi to our understanding of malaria". Trends Parasitol. 28 (2): 73–82. doi:10.1016/j.pt.2011.10.006. PMC 4040349. PMID 22100995.
  6. Achtman AH, Stephens R, Cadman ET, Harrison V, Langhorne J (Sep 2007). "Malaria-specific antibody responses and parasite persistence after infection of mice with Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi". Parasite Immunol. 29 (9): 435–44. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3024.2007.00960.x. PMID 17727567.
  7. Collins WE, Jeffery GM (May 2002). "A retrospective examination of sporozoite-induced and trophozoite-induced infections with Plasmodium ovale: development of parasitologic and clinical immunity during primary infection". Am J Trop Med Hyg. 66 (5): 492–502. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.2002.66.492. PMID 12201582.
  8. Characteristics (Oct 1998). "Plasmodium falciparum parasites that survive the lengthy dry season in eastern Sudan where malaria transmission is markedly seasonal. Babiker HA, Abdel-Muhsin AM, Ranford-Cartwright LC, Satti G, Walliker D". Am J Trop Med Hyg. 59 (4): 582–90. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.1998.59.582. PMID 9790434.
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