A parasite s parasite
the importance of maintaining cultures of malarial parasite called plasmodium is evident in the wake of growing menace of malaria. The cultures help in carrying basic biological research that can later be used for designing effective therapies for the disease. Majority of the research involves characterising the dna of the parasite, patterns of gene expression, and the proteins synthesised by it.
But a recent finding may pose serious setbacks to laboratory approaches towards the study of plasmodium biology. F Turrini and his colleagues at the University of Torino, Italy, report that more than one supposedly pure culture of plasmodium has been found to be contaminated by a smaller parasite of its own called mycoplasma. The parasite makes a whole range of enzymes and secondary metabolites that can effect cell growth (Parasitology Today , Vol 13, No 10).
Mycoplasma is considered to be the smallest organisms capable of self-replication. They resemble other bacteria in some respects but also differ in some respect as they lack a cell wall. Many of the organisms are known to be responsible for infections of the respiratory and urinary tracts. The basic technique used by Turrini and his colleagues, was the polymerase chain reaction that can be used to amplify and characterise very small fractions of
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