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Specificity of Infection Sites in Vertebrate Hosts

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Myxozoan Evolution, Ecology and Development

Abstract

Most myxozoans infecting fish are host-, tissue- and organ-specific parasites. The host specificity of most myxosporean species is rather narrow, with the parasites able to develop in only one host species or in closely related fishes. There are species, however, with relatively wide host ranges, infecting genetically distant host species. Tissue selection is a key taxonomic feature for histozoic myxozoans, as they develop mature spores in only one tissue type. Histozoic species may form plasmodia in epithelial, muscular, cartilaginous and connective tissues, inside nerve cells and in blood vessels, etc. Development of plasmodia often occurs in a well-defined part of an organ. For example in the gills, different species develop in or among lamellae, in different tissues of gill filaments or inside the cartilaginous gill arch. Other species may develop plasmodia in different organs composed of the same tissue type. Using examples, this chapter reviews infection specificity, characterizes how infections are manifested in various tissues and organs, and discusses how infections relate to both parasite and host phylogeny.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA K100132 and OTKA K112301). Thanks are due to the members of the Fish Pathology and Parasitology Research Team and the Fish Parasitology Research Team of the Institute for Veterinary Medical Research. The authors thank Dr. A. Holzer, Dr. D. Grabner and Dr. M. El-Matbouli for providing photomicrographs.

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  1. Institute for Veterinary Medical Research, Centre for Agricultural Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 21 Hungária krt, 1143, Hungary

    Kálmán Molnár & Edit Eszterbauer

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  1. Kálmán Molnár
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Correspondence to Kálmán Molnár .

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  1. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom

    Beth Okamura

  2. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom

    Alexander Gruhl

  3. Department of Microbiology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA

    Jerri L. Bartholomew

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Molnár, K., Eszterbauer, E. (2015). Specificity of Infection Sites in Vertebrate Hosts. In: Okamura, B., Gruhl, A., Bartholomew, J. (eds) Myxozoan Evolution, Ecology and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14753-6_16

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