Plasmodium coatneyi
| Plasmodium coatneyi | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukarya |
| (unranked): | SAR |
| Phylum: | Apicomplexa |
| Class: | Aconoidasida |
| Order: | Haemosporida |
| Family: | Plasmodiidae |
| Genus: | Plasmodium |
| Species: | P. coatneyi |
| Binomial name | |
|
Plasmodium coatneyi |
|
Plasmodium coatneyi is a parasite that is an agent of malaria in nonhuman primates. P. coatneyi occurs in Southeast Asia, which includes East Malaysia, West Malaysia, and Thailand The natural host of this species is the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) and crab-eating macaque (Macaca fascicularis fascicularis), but there has been no evidence that zoonosis of P. coatneyi can occur through its vector, the female Anopheles mosquito.
While P. coatneyi cannot be transmitted to humans, it is similar enough to Plasmodium falciparum to warrant laboratory study as a model species.
Plasmodium coatneyi was first discovered in 1961 by Dr. Don Eyles in the Malaysian state of Selangor.Plasmodium coatneyi was isolated from an Anopheles hackeri before being found in its primate host species. This was the first occurrence of acquiring a new form of malaria through its vector instead of an infected host specimen. The sample was first thought to be Plasmodium knowlesi due to the morphological similarities of the two species, but was later identified as separate due to having a tertiary periodicity compared to P. knowlesi’s quartan periodicity. The presence of P. coatneyi in a host was confirmed in 1963 by Dr. Eyles and his team when the protozoan was discovered in a crab-eating monkey found in the same area Selangor and again in a separate crab-eating monkey in the Philippines. The newly discovered species was then named in honor of Dr. G. Robert Coatney, an American malariologist.
The life cycle of P. coatneyi takes the complex form representative of the Plasmodium genus. When a female Anopheles mosquito bites a human, a haploid form of the protozoan called a sporozoite is transferred from the salivary glands into the circulatory system of the human. These motile sporozoites are then taken by the circulatory system to the liver, where they invade the liver cells ().
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Wikipedia