Trichinella

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Trichinella" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Trichinella
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Nematoda
Class:	Enoplea
Order:	Trichocephalida
Family:	Trichinellidae
Genus:	Trichinella Railliet, 1895
Species
Trichinella britovi Trichinella murrelli Trichinella nativa Trichinella nelsoni Trichinella papuae Trichinella pseudospiralis Trichinella spiralis Trichinella zimbabwensis

Trichinella is the genus of parasitic roundworms of the phylum Nematoda that cause trichinosis (also known as trichinellosis). Members of this genus are often called trichinella or trichina worms. A characteristic of Nematoda is the one-way digestive tract, with a pseudocoelom (body cavity made up of only an ectoderm and endoderm).

The genus was first recognised in a larval form in 1835. The L1 larvae live in a modified skeletal muscle cell. The adult worms occupy a membrane-bound portion of columnar epithelium, living as intramulticellular parasites of animals, including humans. Infections with this genus have been reported from more than 150 different naturally or experimentally infected hosts. It has been shown to have a worldwide distribution in domestic and/or sylvatic animals.

Trichinella is the smallest human nematode parasite, yet it is also the largest of all intracellular parasites.

Oral ingestion of cyst- or larvae-contaminated tissue is the usual route of infection, but congenital and mammary transmission can occur in rats.^[1]