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| Naegleria fowleri. Image Courtesy: ScienceBuzz |
This brain eating amoeba that killed 3 individuals this summer is a organism that can be found in the warm regions and freshwater and also in the lakes, rivers, hot springs and also in the soil.
This microscopic amoeba named as Naegleria fowleri attacks a person who inhales it. It first travels up to the nose and then to the brain and usually kills the individual within the time span of two weeks.
Aside from its rarity, the amoeba "is not looking to prey upon human victims," he said. "They usually go after bacteria in water and soil."
As unicellular organism, amoebas don’t even have brains. But the Nalgeria species including this dreadful one can convert themselves into 3 different basic body types.
"This one-celled organism hunts and eats bacteria as an amoeba, swims around looking for a better environment as a flagellate, and then hunkers down and waits for good times as a cyst," said Simon Prochnik, a computational scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. "It is a very rare process to go from amoeba to flagellate like this."
Simon, who sequenced the species of Nalgeria last year, said that when environmental conditions are not favorable to the amoeba, they can convert quickly into flagellate forming two tails rapidly. It can then swim and then move to a favorable spot.
To support these 3 body types this amoeba is packed with genes; 15727 of them. To that perspective humans have 23000 protein coding genes.
According to the CDC data, 32 cases all true- -- occurred between 2001 and 2010. From 1937 to 2007, there were 121 reported cases. Yoder knew of only one survivor, an individual who became infected in 1978.
Curing this disease is difficult. Related symptoms such as high fever, headache and neck stiffness are also present with bacterial and viral diseases. So confusions are possible.
All the cases have occurred in the south: a 16 year old girl in Florida, a 9 year old boy in Virginia and a 20 year old young man in Louisiana. A long summer and regular droughts make the conditions favorable for this amoeba. According to the CDC, infections occur mainly in July, August and September.
This microscopic amoeba named as Naegleria fowleri attacks a person who inhales it. It first travels up to the nose and then to the brain and usually kills the individual within the time span of two weeks.
Aside from its rarity, the amoeba "is not looking to prey upon human victims," he said. "They usually go after bacteria in water and soil."
As unicellular organism, amoebas don’t even have brains. But the Nalgeria species including this dreadful one can convert themselves into 3 different basic body types.
"This one-celled organism hunts and eats bacteria as an amoeba, swims around looking for a better environment as a flagellate, and then hunkers down and waits for good times as a cyst," said Simon Prochnik, a computational scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. "It is a very rare process to go from amoeba to flagellate like this."
Simon, who sequenced the species of Nalgeria last year, said that when environmental conditions are not favorable to the amoeba, they can convert quickly into flagellate forming two tails rapidly. It can then swim and then move to a favorable spot.
To support these 3 body types this amoeba is packed with genes; 15727 of them. To that perspective humans have 23000 protein coding genes.
According to the CDC data, 32 cases all true- -- occurred between 2001 and 2010. From 1937 to 2007, there were 121 reported cases. Yoder knew of only one survivor, an individual who became infected in 1978.
Curing this disease is difficult. Related symptoms such as high fever, headache and neck stiffness are also present with bacterial and viral diseases. So confusions are possible.
All the cases have occurred in the south: a 16 year old girl in Florida, a 9 year old boy in Virginia and a 20 year old young man in Louisiana. A long summer and regular droughts make the conditions favorable for this amoeba. According to the CDC, infections occur mainly in July, August and September.
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