About this Research Topic

Background

Parasitism is a tight association between species in which one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside the host, causing it harm, and is structurally adapted to this way of life. Until the twenty-first century, parasitism was studied by parasitologists, rather than ecologists or evolutionary biologists. Today, parasitism is a major element of evolutionary ecology, as nearly all free-living animals are hosts to at least one parasite species. Since it is in the parasite's evolutionary interest for its host to flourish, long-term coevolution can lead to a stable relationship bordering on mutualism. According to Lynn Margulis, when resources are scarce, natural selection, moves relationships from parasitism to mutualism, as it was brilliantly illustrated in Margulis' endosymbiosis theory, where eukaryotic mitochondria and chloroplasts descended from formerly free-living prokaryotes. Boundary between mutualism, symbiosis, and pathological parasitism is a thin red line that frequently overlapping without a theory enough clear to explain this thigh relationship between the parasite and its host.



While worm parasitism certainly harms animals, it may also lessen the occurrence and impact of autoimmune illnesses in animal hosts, including humans. Parasites are often considered detrimental. However, eradicating them completely would not be advantageous. Parasites make up half of life's diversity and play vital ecological roles. Parasites allow for inter-species DNA exchange, allowing for evolutionary change. To complete their life cycles, many parasites rely on predator-prey or other stable ecological interactions. Parasites imply a healthy ecology. While parasites are frequently absent from representations of food webs, they consistently occupy the top spot. Parasites can act as keystone species, allowing competing species to coexist while lowering the dominance of superior competitors. On the other hand, with 220 million people affected annually by malaria, measures such as prophylaxis, eradicating mosquito vectors using pesticides, and vaccine development, have been attempted to stop malaria transmission. Nevertheless, drug resistance, pesticide resistance in mosquitoes, and vaccine failures due to complex life cycles and naturally occurring genetic polymorphism in this parasite have all been high problematic. Similar issues have been detected against other important economic classes of parasites that cause disease in domestic animals that include protozoa, helminths, and ectoparasites. Hence, the goal of this research topic is to consider and evaluate the good, the bad and the ugly of parasitism in humans and animals.



This Research Topic encourages the submission of manuscripts that explore themes such as (but not limited to):



- Accurately diagnosis of new undefined parasite genotypes exploring their biological traits, genetic and antigenic diversity, and comparing these directly with the already well-recognized parasites.

- Evaluation of vaccines against parasitic diseases important to public health and animal production.

- New challenges and consequences of changing the balance of control from broad-spectrum parasite drugs to narrow-spectrum specific vaccines on field parasite populations.

- Evaluation of nutraceuticals (probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, organic acids, phytobiotics) as natural alternatives to reduce the severity of drug resistance and pesticide resistance in parasites and parasite vectors.

- Use of pharmaceutical strategies such as micro/nano systems to functionalize new alternatives in the prevention, control, and treatment of parasitic diseases in animals.

- New immunological strategies on parasitic diseases control, such as egg-yolk specific immunoglobulins supplementation to operationalize new measures with prophylactic and immunotherapy goals.

Keywords: Parasitism, ecology, vaccine development, nutraceuticals, pesticides

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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