Naegleria fowleri aka "Brain Eating Ameoba"

Introduction

Amoeba are single celled organisms that are found in every major eukaryotic lineage. They are eukaryotic organisms that are defined by their lack of cell walls and the presence of pseudopods. While amoeba exist in many different lineages, the only 'true' amoeba are ones that are in the taxa Amoebozoa.
They live in the water, soil, and air of a number of diverse ecosystems. They are often predators that consume fungi and bacteria and aid with the recycling of nutrients.They feed via phagocytosis, engulfing smaller particles and organisms into their cytoplasm using their pseudopods. To regulate their internal environment, amoebas have vacuoles that regulate osmosis.

Amoeba can have vastly different structures, which is determined by the actin filaments in the cytoplasm. It is these filaments that control the structure of the pseudopods.

Amoeba are divided into two main groups: free-living and non-free-living, some of which are pathogenic to humans.

[[Aem.01866-20-f0001 (1).jpeg] |thumb|300px|left|Figure 1. Schematic representation of amoeba diversity. (A) Amoebae are spread in several supergroups, including Amoebozoa, Rhizaria, Excavata, Heterokonta, Alveolata, Opisthokonta, and other ungrouped species. Amoebozoa (black) is the only group that solely consists of amoebae. The tree topology is from previous classifications (3, 139). (B) Amoebae show considerable variation in their sizes. https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/aem.01866-20.]]

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Legend/credit: Electron micrograph of the Ebola Zaire virus. This was the first photo ever taken of the virus, on 10/13/1976. By Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at U.C. Davis, then at the CDC.
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Pathogenic Amoebas

Naegleria fowleri is a highly dangerous ameoba that can infect humans and cause death within 7 to 10 days of infection. This amoeba attacks brain tissue and causes brain swelling; an infection known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

The Naegleria genus has over 30 species, but only Naegleria fowleri has been found to be pathogenic to humans.

N. fowleri survives best in warm water like hot springs, ponds, and poorly chlorinated pools. They cannot survive in salt water. These are heat loving amoeba and can survive in temperatures up to 46 degree celsius, making them ideal to adapt to internal body temperatures of humans and other animals.

Naegleria fowleri has three different lifeforms — trophozoite, flagellate, and cyst. They are often in their cyst form when environmental conditions are not ideal. This form has an endocyst wall to protect against large changes in pH or temperatures. The flagellate form is pear shaped with two flagella. The trophozoite form is infectious to humans and is when the amoeba eats (via trogocytosis and phagocytosis) and replicates (via binary fission).This form has the characteristic pseudopods, which are used to classify amoeba.

[1.Depiction of Naegleria fowleri in its three states of transformation. (a) Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of trophozoites illustrating the prominent nucleus with a centrally located electron-dense nucleolus. (b) Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of trophozoites exhibiting ‘food-cups’ (arrow). (c) SEM of a cyst. (d) Light micrograph of a flagellate with the characteristic two flagella. (e) TEM of flagellate illustrating one of the flagella (arrow). The scale bars represent 10µm for (a–d) and 2µm for (e). ]

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References

Edited by [Cameron McCaleb], student of Joan Slonczewski for BIOL 116, 2024, Kenyon College.