Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 25, 2026

QTL Mapping and CRISPR/Cas9 Editing to Identify a Drug Resistance Gene in Toxoplasma gondii
Published on: June 22, 2017
Sexual recombination punctuated by outbreaks and clonal expansions predicts Toxoplasma gondii population genetics
Michael E Grigg1, Natarajan Sundar
1Molecular Parasitology Unit, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20815, USA. griggm@niaid.nih.gov
Abstract:
The cosmopolitan parasitic pathogen Toxoplasma gondii is capable of infecting essentially any warm-blooded vertebrate worldwide, including most birds and mammals, and establishes chronic infections in one-third of the globe's human population. The success of this highly prevalent zoonosis is largely the result of its ability to propagate both sexually and clonally. Frequent genetic exchanges via sexual recombination among extant parasite lineages that mix in the definitive felid host produces new lines that emerge to expand the parasite's host range and cause outbreaks. Highly successful lines spread clonally via carnivorism and in some cases sweep to pandemic levels. The extent to which sexual reproduction versus clonal expansion shapes Toxoplasma's current, global population genetic structure is the central question this review will attempt to answer.
Related Concept Videos
Toxoplasmosis
Viral Recombination
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift
Diversity of Protists I
Crossing Over
