life cycle of leishmania donovani
The amastigote form is found in the mononuclear phagocytes and circulatory systems of humans. Promastigotes that reach the puncture wound are phagocytized by macrophages and other types of mononuclear phagocytic cells. Despite efforts to unravel the mechanisms of leishmania pathogenicity to determine the risk of infection and to develop new treatments and vaccines against the parasite there are still gaps in the state of the art treatments to be explored.
Leishmania is of two kinds as leishmania donovani and leishmania tropica.
Life cycle of leishmania donovani. Donovani infects the liver spleen white blood cells etc. Depending on the stage of their life cycle they exist in two structural variants as. It is caused by leishmania donovani. In humans the metacyclic promastigotes are injected by sandfly through the skin during its blood meal.
In comparison the l tropica affects the endothelial cells of skin capillaries. Life cycle of echinococcus granulosus the eggs are discharged with the feces of the definitive hosts such as dog wolf fox and jackel. It causes kala azar dum dum fever and visceral leishmaniasis. Kala azar is transmitted by the bite of sandflies c.
Life cycle image and information courtesy of dpdx. Leishmania species are unicellular eukaryotes having a well defined nucleus and other cell organelles including kinetoplasts and flagella. B intermediate host in the life cycle of a parasite mosquito in the transmission of filariasis c definitive host in the life cycle of a parasite female anopheles mosquito in the life cycle of malarial parasites d vector either mechanical biological. The sandflies inject the infective stage i e promastigotes from their proboscis during blood meals.
When sandfly bites using its proboscis it ejects the parasites that are stored inside the hollow tube. Kala azar can be diagnosed by finding amastigotes in bone marrow. Lamblia has both a trophozoite and cyst stage in its life cycle b. For example one of the most well defined aspects of the parasite the leishmania life cycle has been updated by recent and important discoveries of.
An itermidiate host such as sheep cattle pig etc swallow the eggs while grazing in the field and human particularly children swallow the eggs due to intimate handling of infected dogs or other definitive hosts. Life cycle the organism is transmitted by the bite of several species of blood feeding sand flies phlebotomus which carries the promastigote in the anterior gut and pharynx. It gains access to mononuclear phagocytes where it transform into amastigote and divides until the infected cell ruptures. Leishmaniasis is transmitted by the bite of infected female phlebotomine sandflies.
Kala azar occurs primarily in rural latin america d. In sand flies amastigotes transform into promastigotes develop in the gut in the hindgut for leishmanial organisms in the viannia subgenus. It is an intracellular and. Leishmania donovani is a digenetic parasite passing its life cycle in two different hosts.