The latest Paper of the Month for Parasitology is “Cell repertoire and proliferation of germinative cells of the model cestode Mesocestoides corti” and is freely available for one month.

Cestodes are parasitic flatworms responsible for various zoonoses of great public health concern. While the most relevant species are difficult to maintain in the laboratory, Mesocestoides corti has emerged as a model to study cestode biology, since large amounts of worms can be obtained from experimentally infected mice, and adult stage development can be induced in culture conditions.

Cestodes show a remarkable proliferative capability, essential for their lifestyle, that sustains the constant growth and differentiation of segments present in the adult stage. It is believed that a particular population of undifferentiated stem cells, the so-called germinative cells, are the only cells that can proliferate and are responsible for cell renewal, growth, tissue repair and regeneration. 

We have previously determined the localization of germinative cells in M. corti and characterized several molecular markers. These cells are present only in the larvae parenchyma, and during development of the adult stage they concentrate in the genital primordia, similar to that observed in free-living flatworms. Once we determined the localization and molecular characteristics of germinative cells in the whole organism, we continued their characterization in isolated cells in S and G2/M phases of the cell cycle.

Knowing the precise role of these and other cells in cestode biology will allow new intervention strategies aiming to control diseases caused by cestodes. With this goal, it is of interest to characterize all cell types and study their role in cestode biology and host – parasite interaction, along with their properties to be used as a strategy against cestode parasites.

Future characterization of these cells requires improved methods for culture and study gene expression during development, such as the ones described in this article. We present the repertoire of cell types of M. corti and show that cells with proliferative capacity can be cultured in vitro for short periods. Besides, we analyze putative molecular markers by in situ hybridization in the cestode M. corti.

The paper “Cell repertoire and proliferation of germinative cells of the model cestode Mesocestoides corti” by, María Fernanda Domínguez, Alicia Costábile, Uriel Koziol, Matías Preza, Klaus Brehm, José F. Tort and Estela Castillo, published in Parasitology, and is freely available for one month.

Credit: Images from our laboratory. On the left, a segmented worm showing the presence of a specific messenger RNA in its reproductive organs. On the right, some of the cell-types present at the parasite that we were able to characterize.