Summary
Microsporidia form in the xenomas with their hosts a special type of relation. The host cell and the parasite represent together a physiological and morphological unit. In this relation the sporonts of Pleistophora debaisieuxi cause divisions of fat body cells of blackflies to an extent that each parasite sporont is finally closed in a specific host cell, the xenocyte, with a permanent functioning nucleus and a cytoplasmic coat which remains persistent during the whole sporogony of the microsporidian.
Two main types of xenomas are differentiated: the syncytial, in which the infected cells dissolve their limiting membranes and form a multinuclear plasmodium, in some cases with nuclear hypertrophy, and the neoplastic in which the number of induced xenocytes (infected host cells) is much higher than the original number of fat body cells, an analogy of tumor formation. In this group we include the Glugea-cyst as a specific case with neoplastic nuclear divisions of the primary cyst cell.
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Weiser, J. The Pleistophora debaisieuxi xenoma. Z. Parasitenk. 48, 263–270 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00380400
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00380400