Recently, the Research team of Parasite pathogenesis and Prevention technology of School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southwest University, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine have jointly published a review entitled "Microsporidiosis in Humans" in Clinical Microbiology Reviews (IF = 26.1), an international journal of Microbiology research. This review summarizes and prospects the research on human pathogenic microsporidia in recent decades. Professor Han Bing of the School of Basic Medical Sciences is the first author of the paper, and Professor Louis M. Weiss of Albert Einstein College of medicine is the corresponding author of the paper. School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shandong University was the first author unit.

Microsporidia is a kind of single-celled eukaryotic pathogen with idiopathic intracellular parasitism. In early taxonomy, microsporidia have been classified as protozoa, but recent studies on molecular evolution and phylogeny suggest that microsporidia are more closely related to fungi. Microsporidium is an opportunistic pathogen that mainly infects immunocompromised patients. However, with the update of detection methods, the number of cases of microsporidium infecting healthy people is increasing gradually. There are currently about 17 species of microsporidia in 10 genera that can infect humans, causing diseases such as keratoconjunctivitis, diarrhea, lung infection, hepatitis, and skin ulceration. Because microsporidium infection poses a significant threat to human health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has listed it as a Biodefense Priority B agent.

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1128/CMR.00010-20