Talk:Plasmodium

Regarding vaccination: is it at all possible to vaccinate against protozoa? --Eequor 14:23, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is a very good question. There are a LOT of people working on precisely this. The current (2007) answer is 'No' but this may change in the future.

Invalid links to this article

There are some invalid links to this article because "plasmodium" also has another meaning in biology, not only the malaria parasite. It probably needs some good thinking to define the other meaning, but check for example links from Slime mould and Myxozoa. Taka 2 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)

Updates

There should probably be a seperate article devoted to that definition of plasmodium, as it refers to a stage in a slime mould's lifecycle and this article seems to be categorized more as an article about a specific genus in taxonomy, rather than a general definition of a word. --Ethidiumbromide 16:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

141.250.66.61 10:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Luis141.250.66.61 10:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC) == Notes ==

A few - very few - of the species listed here may be invalid. It is difficult to get an up to date listing of all the currently recognised species but the listing here combined with the notes should be reasonably trustworthy. DrMicro 22:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

P. acuminatum and P. adunyinkai have been difficult to confirm as species and may not be valid species. DrMicro 17:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There are currently 171 species listed in the taxobox. 100 have been given subgenera. DrMicro 21:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Addition of another species: P. lacertiliae. Also P. diminutivum is proving difficult to verify and should for the present be regarded as a dubious entry in the taxonomy. DrMicro

Addition of another species: P. beltrani. Two more entered into the subgenera listing. P. torrealbai is proving difficult to verify and may be incorrect.

Current listing: 173 species with 4 that should be regarded as dubious entries. Some listed in the taxobox are likely to be names that have now been replaced. Accordingly the valid species name listing is probably less than the 173 given here. Subgenera have been identified for 102 and all of these can be regarded as valid species - at least until molecular methods clarify (or confuse) the taxonomic position further. DrMicro

A number of new host species have been added under the avian malarias. These will be wikified when I can get around to it. Any help here is welcome. Also three additional species have been added to the taxobox. One species has been deleted from the subgenera listing and three added. This is virtually the entire list of currently recognised species.

Some of the species listed may need to be deleted as being invalid later but since this is now quite a large page it might be better to list the species to be deleted on this discussion page and delete several of them at one time as this is more sparing of Wikipedias servers. DrMicro

I think this page bar further minor edits, addition of the diagnostic criteria for the remaining subgenera, listing of the outstanding species by subgenus and inclusion or deletion of species is probably complete enough to be useful as a reference. Additional details will be located under the link to each species. Almost every species listed here has a vertebrate host listed. It may be worth listing the invertebrate hosts here or perhaps it may be better to do so under the species description instead. References and updates of course will always be welcome.

The molecular biology of malaria is largely known because of work on a single species - Plasmodium falciparum - and much of this may not be applicable to other species so I would suggest filing additional material relating to this under a seperate page.

Currently the dubious 'species' listed here are: P. acuminatum, P. adunyinkai, P. diminutivum and P. torrealbai. It seems likely that at least one or two given more may also be dubious. If anyone can confirm or refute these doubts thier input would be most welcome. DrMicro 15:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

P. diminutivum having found a decent reference to it can now be taken off the dubious list. DrMicro 16:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if Plasmodium schweitzi is a valid species, or just a typing error of Plasmodium schwetzi 141.250.66.61 10:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Luis141.250.66.61 10:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Luis. This was a typo on my part. If this is in the taxobox I will fix it when I get round to doing a clean up of the taxobox - which I will do shortly. I have been defering this until I have (1) a little more time and (2) have checked a few more of the species validity. I have another three that seem likely to be valid and there are a few there that should now be deleted. If this typo occurs anywhere else on the article please feel free to fix it. Im defering editing the taxobox until I have checked these species because as it is currently designed it requires the entire page to be backed up by the servers. The article weights in at ~45 kiliobyes at the minute so at a small risk of being misleading for a short time I trying to spare the servers. If you or anyone else wants to clean up the species list please feel free to do so. I would be grateful if you do if you could list the deleted ones here just in case one or other might actually be valid. DrMicro

Plasmodium (Novyella) ashfordi - a new species that has just been described. I will update the article later. DrMicro