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Intestinal Microsporidiosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Jan Marc Orenstein
Jan Marc Orenstein*
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology, Ross 502, George Washington University, 2300 Eye Street, NW, Washington DC, 20037
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Abstract

Sixteen years have passed since a microsporidian was first reported as an opportunistic pathogen in HIV/AIDS. to date, two new genera, Enterocytozoon and Trachipleistophora, and 5 new species, Enterocytozoon bieneusi, Encephalitozoon hellem and E. intestinalis, and T. hominis and T. anthropophthera have been described infecting patients with AIDS. E. bieneusi and E. intestinalis have been among the most common intestinal pathogens diagnosed as causes of diarrhea and wasting in HIV/AIDS.

Members of their phylum, Microspora, have in common a hollow polar tube that is tightly wound up in their spores. The coiling up of the polar tube, just beneath the cell wall, allows a structure that is several times its length to be packaged within a spore. E. bieneusi, which has the smallest of all microsporidian spores, 1 x 1.5 ¼m, overcomes its size limitations by packaging its polar tube in 2 layers of 3 coils each. When conditions are right, this unique structure is extruded from the spore and becomes the “needle of a syringe”.

Type
Emerging Pathogens: Something Old, Something New (Organized By S. Miller and D. Howell)
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 7 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis 2001, Microscopy Society of America 59th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 35th Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California August 5-9, 2001 , August 2001 , pp. 170 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2001

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References

references

Orenstein, JM, Chiang, J, Steinberg, W, Smith, PD, Rotterdam, H, Kotler, DP. 1990. Intestinal microsporidiosis as a cause of diarrhea in human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients: A report of 20 cases. Hum Pathol 21:475–481.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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