A rare species of tapeworm has been
detected living inside a 50 year old man’s brain, for four years. This man
lives in England, is of Chinese decent and he visits his homeland regularly.
The patient was administered to the hospital after complaining of headaches,
memory loss, seizures and peculiar smell. Although the man appeared normal and
tested negative for multiple disease testing, MRI scans were conducted. After
administering several MRI scans over the course of four years, the doctors
concluded there was a 5cm lesion traveling across his brain. The patient’s
doctors then acted and took a biopsy of the man’s left thalamus. Their
discovery was of a 1cm long larval worm that was ribbon shaped.
Samples of
the tapeworm were sent over to researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger
Institute. At the institute researchers, like Dr. Hayley Bennett, took a closer
look at this worm’s gene sequence. The researchers looked at the DNA and
concluded the tapeworm was, Spirometraerinaceieuropaei. This tapeworm is very rare and typically found in China,
South Korea, Japan, and Thailand. The doctors have concluded that the patient
had contracted this tapeworm over one of his visits home. The infection was
most likely caused by the ingestion of undercooked snake or frog, or drinking
contaminated water.
The DNA strand is cut up into
manageable pieces and observed through 100 letters at a time (ATCG). This
linear jigsaw puzzle is an entire genome of 1.26 billion base pair long. By the
investigation of the genome sequence it is beneficial in the detection of this
organisms genetic make up. This data collection of genomic sequence allows for
the investigation into other flatworms and their genetic family expansion. This
conclusion leads to identifying genes or resistance to certain treatments and
allows for the targeting of potential drugs.
Little
is known about the genetic sequence of this tapeworm and how destructive it is
to a number of hosts. I think this article was extremely interesting in
imagining the tiny size of this tapeworm and the enormity of its genetic
sequence. This research of genomes in tapeworms and the data collected was used
to predict whether certain drugs could be used in certain rare infections. With
the specificity of genome parts, researchers were able to conclude tapeworm had
genes that provided resistance to drugs.
This detection could potentially save someone’s life
