Leishmania
Leishmania is a genus of single-celled kinetoplastid parasites transmitted by sand flies. Its species cause leishmaniasis in humans and other animals.
Leishmania life cycle: The sequence of developmental stages Leishmania passes through in sand flies and vertebrate hosts. Its alternating insect and mammalian stages explain how the genus spreads and persists.
Leishmania donovani: A Leishmania species that causes visceral leishmaniasis, especially in the Indian subcontinent and East Africa. It is a major cause of the genus's most severe systemic disease.
Leishmaniasis: A group of diseases caused by Leishmania parasites and usually transmitted by infected sand flies. This disease family is the clinical consequence of infection by the genus.
Kinetoplastida: An order of flagellated protists characterized by a kinetoplast, a DNA-rich region in the mitochondrion. Leishmania belongs to this group of organisms.
Promastigote: An elongated, flagellated developmental form of kinetoplastid parasites, including Leishmania, found in insect hosts. Sand flies carry this form and deliver it during a blood meal.
Leishmania infantum: A Leishmania species that causes visceral leishmaniasis in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, and the Americas. Its broad range shows that visceral disease is not limited to South Asia.
Phlebotomine sand fly: A small blood-feeding fly in the subfamily Phlebotominae; some species transmit Leishmania. These flies transmit parasites between vertebrate hosts.
Trypanosomatid: A flagellated protozoan belonging to the family Trypanosomatidae, many of which are parasites. Leishmania is one genus within this broader parasite family.
Amastigote: A small, usually nonflagellated intracellular developmental form of kinetoplastid parasites. In mammalian hosts, Leishmania multiplies mainly as amastigotes inside phagocytic cells.
Leishmania major: A Leishmania species that causes zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in parts of Africa and Asia. It exemplifies skin disease maintained in animal reservoirs.