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About the Authors:
Oscar A. Mendez
Affiliations Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America, BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3476-5864
Anita A. Koshy
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliations BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America, Department of Immunobiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America, Department of Neurology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of AmericaAbstract
Toxoplasma gondii is one of the world’s most successful parasites, in part because of its ability to infect and persist in most warm-blooded animals. A unique characteristic of T. gondii is its ability to persist in the central nervous system (CNS) of a variety of hosts, including humans and rodents. How, what, and why T. gondii encysts in the CNS has been the topic of study for decades. In this review, we will discuss recent work on how T. gondii is able to traverse the unique barrier surrounding the CNS, what cells of the CNS play host to T. gondii, and finally, how T. gondii infection may influence global and cellular physiology of the CNS.
Citation: Mendez OA, Koshy AA (2017) Toxoplasma gondii: Entry, association, and physiological influence on the central nervous system. PLoS Pathog 13(7): e1006351. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006351
Editor: Marc-Jan Gubbels, Boston College, UNITED STATES
Published: July 20, 2017
Copyright: © 2017 Mendez, Koshy. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: Funding was provided by NIH/NINDS NS095994-01S1 (OM/AAK), http://www.ninds.nih.gov/, and the BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona (AAK), http://www.bio5.org. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction
Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite of the phyla Apicomplexa. Felids are the only definitive host for T. gondii, but T. gondii has a wide intermediate host range and has been documented to naturally infect most warm-blooded animals including birds, rodents, and humans [1]. In most hosts, T. gondii establishes a life-long, latent infection in tissues such as skeletal muscle,...