Structure, composition, and roles of the Toxoplasma gondii oocyst and sporocyst walls

Wesley Freppel; David J P Ferguson; Karen Shapiro; Jitender P Dubey; Pierre-Henri Puech; Aurélien Dumètre

doi:10.1016/j.tcsw.2018.100016

Structure, composition, and roles of the Toxoplasma gondii oocyst and sporocyst walls

Cell Surf. 2018 Dec 19:5:100016. doi: 10.1016/j.tcsw.2018.100016. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Authors

Wesley Freppel¹, David J P Ferguson^{2

3}, Karen Shapiro⁴, Jitender P Dubey⁵, Pierre-Henri Puech^{6

7

8}, Aurélien Dumètre¹

Affiliations

¹ Aix Marseille Univ, IRD, AP-HM, SSA, VITROME, Marseille, France.
² Nuffield Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, United Kingdom.
³ Department Biological & Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, One Shields Ave, 4206 VM3A, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-5270, USA.
⁵ United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory, Building 1001, Beltsville, MD 20705-2350, USA.
⁶ Aix Marseille Univ, LAI UM 61, Marseille F-13288, France.
⁷ Inserm, UMR_S 1067, Marseille F-13288, France.
⁸ CNRS, UMR 7333, Marseille F-13288, France.

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is a coccidian parasite with the cat as its definitive host but any warm-blooded animal, including humans, may act as intermediate hosts. It has a worldwide distribution where it may cause acute and chronic toxoplasmosis. Infection can result from ingestion either of tissue cysts in infected meat of intermediate hosts or oocysts found in cat faeces via contaminated water or food. In this review, we highlight how the oocyst and sporocyst walls sustain the persistence and transmission of infective T. gondii parasites from terrestrial and aquatic environments to the host. We further discuss why targeting the oocyst wall structure and molecules may reduce the burden of foodborne and waterborne T. gondii infections.

Keywords: Environment; Molecules; Oocyst; Sporocyst; Wall structure.

Publication types

Review