8.3 Protists  (Page 4/17)

Human pathogens

Many protists are pathogenic parasites that must infect other organisms to survive and propagate. Protist parasites include the causative agents of malaria, African sleeping sickness, and waterborne gastroenteritis in humans. Other protist pathogens prey on plants, effecting massive destruction of food crops.

Plasmodium Species

Members of the genus Plasmodium must infect a mosquito and a vertebrate to complete their life cycle. In vertebrates, the parasite develops in liver cells and goes on to infect red blood cells, bursting from and destroying the blood cells with each asexual replication cycle ( [link] ). Of the four Plasmodium species known to infect humans, P . falciparum accounts for 50 percent of all malaria cases and is the primary cause of disease-related fatalities in tropical regions of the world. In 2010, it was estimated that malaria caused between 0.5 and 1 million deaths, mostly in African children. During the course of malaria, P . falciparum can infect and destroy more than one-half of a human’s circulating blood cells, leading to severe anemia. In response to waste products released as the parasites burst from infected blood cells, the host immune system mounts a massive inflammatory response with delirium-inducing fever episodes, as parasites destroy red blood cells, spilling parasite waste into the blood stream. P . falciparum is transmitted to humans by the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae . Techniques to kill, sterilize, or avoid exposure to this highly aggressive mosquito species are crucial to malaria control.

Trypanosomes

T . brucei , the parasite that is responsible for African sleeping sickness, confounds the human immune system by changing its thick layer of surface glycoproteins with each infectious cycle ( [link] ). The glycoproteins are identified by the immune system as foreign matter, and a specific antibody defense is mounted against the parasite. However, T . brucei has thousands of possible antigens, and with each subsequent generation, the protist switches to a glycoprotein coating with a different molecular structure. In this way, T . brucei is capable of replicating continuously without the immune system ever succeeding in clearing the parasite. Without treatment, African sleeping sickness leads invariably to death because of damage it does to the nervous system. During epidemic periods, mortality from the disease can be high. Greater surveillance and control measures have led to a reduction in reported cases; some of the lowest numbers reported in 50 years (fewer than 10,000 cases in all of sub-Saharan Africa) have happened since 2009.

In Latin America, another species in the genus, T . cruzi , is responsible for Chagas disease. T . cruzi infections are mainly caused by a blood-sucking bug. The parasite inhabits heart and digestive system tissues in the chronic phase of infection, leading to malnutrition and heart failure caused by abnormal heart rhythms. An estimated 10 million people are infected with Chagas disease, which caused 10,000 deaths in 2008.