Ascaris lumbricoides

Life Cycle and Pathogenesis

Introduction
• Ascaris lumbricoides, also known as round worm, is the largest and most prevalent of the human nematodes
(monogenetic endoparasite) and may have been the first human parasite ever described.
• It is present in the small intestine of man (usually jejunum).
• It is cosmopolitan in distribution, but more prevalent in the tropics ( India, China, SE Asia etc).
• Present in about 25% human population.
Taxonomy :-
Kingdom - Animalia,
Phylum - Nematoda,
Class – Secernentea/Phasmida
Order - Ascarida,
Family - Ascarididae,
Genus - Ascaris
Species - lumbricoides
MORPHOLOGY
• Ascaris lumbricoides are also called round worms because of their shape.
• Colour-creamish / pinkish.
• Size-male about 15 to 25 cm in length. Tail is curved ventrally.
• The body is covered with a smooth, tough and elastic cuticle.
• Female about 20 to 40 cm in length.
• Body is round or cylindrical in shape and tapers at both ends.
• The mouth of Ascaris is a triradiate aperture, guarded by three lips: one elliptical
mid-dorsal and two oval latero-ventral in position. The lips have fine teeth. The latero-
ventral lips have amphids which are olfactory chemoreceptors.
• The lips have papillae. All papillae are sensory.
• Body cavity pseudocoel.
• In males cloaca is the common opening for digestive and reproductive systems.
From it two isospicules (penial setae) protrude out .
• Excretory pore present ventrally in both sexes.
Morphology contid..
• In the male near the cloaca there are cuticular elevations ventrally,
about 50 pairs of pre-anal papillae and 5 pairs of post-anal papillae are
present which are concerned with copulation.
• There is a short post-anal tail which is straight in the female but sharply
curved in the male.
• The female genital aperture called vulva, or gonopore is on the ventral
side.
• Behind the lips, there is an excretory pore mid-ventrally.
Reproductive System:

• Only sexual reproduction occurs in Ascaris. Sexes are separate and there is
distinct sexual dimorphism between male and female Ascaris.
• Adult worms live in the lumen of the small intestine. A female may produce
approximately 200,000 eggs per day,
which are passed with the feces.
Adult worms can live 1 to 2 years.
Male Reproductive System:
It includes a testis, a vas deferens,
a seminal vesicle, an ejaculatory duct,
cloaca and penial setae.
Female Reproductive System:
The female genitalia include ovaries, oviducts, uterus and vagina.
Male Reproductive System:
• Testes: Male ascaris is monorchis i.e., it has a single testis. The testes are a long, thin and coiled tube-like structure. It continues into a vas deferens.
• Vas deferens: This is shorter and less coiled tube than testis.
• Seminal vesicle: This is a long, straight and relatively much
thicker tube into which the vas deferens opens. It serves to store the mature sperms.
• Ejaculatory duct: The seminal vesicle leads into a short, narrow and highly
muscular and glandular ejaculatory duct. This duct bears a number of prostatic glands whose
secretions help in copulation. This duct opens behind into the last part of rectum to form cloaca.
• Cloaca: The last part of rectum, located behind the opening of ejaculatory
duct serves as cloaca, because it receives both faeces and sperms. It opens out by the
cloacal aperture.
• Penial setae: Two small, contractile needle like penial setae open into the cloaca on
dorsal side. Each sac secretes and contains a small needle-like penial or copulatory setae or spicule.
Protractor and retractor muscles, associated with the wall of each penial sac respectively serve to
protrude and retract the contained spicule through the cloacal aperture. During copulation, the
spicules protrude out to keep the female’s vulva open.
• Sperms of Ascaris are asymmetrical and amoeboid.
Female Reproductive System:
• Ovaries: Female Ascaris is didelphic i.e., it has two ovaries.
It is long, thin and coiled tube-like structures. There is a set of two parallel
tracts of female reproductive organs,
i.e., an ovary, oviduct and a uterus in one tract; this condition is
called didelphic.
The oogonia after completing the first maturation divisions, become secondary
oocytes and reach the oviducts.
• Oviducts: Each ovary leads into a long and coiled
oviduct.
• Uterus: Each oviduct leads into a much thicker and long uterus. Uteri serve to
store the eggs after fertilization. The first part of uterus serves as seminal receptacle
where sperms, after copulation, are stored and where fertilisation occurs, the
remaining uterus stores fertilised eggs, and its cells produce yolk and material for egg
shells.
• Vagina: The uteri open into short and relatively narrow vagina. The wall of vagina
is quite muscular and contractile. The vagina opens out by slit-like female pore/vulva.
Formation of Gametes in Ascaris Lumbricoides:

• In Ascaris the gonads are telogonic. Here the germ cells arise at the
proximal end only which is called germinal zone or the zone of
proliferation. Next part of the gonad is a growth zone where gametogonia
enlarge. In the ovary, the elongated developing eggs are arranged radially
around a central cytoplasmic rachis.
• In the testis the developing amoeboid sperms are packed around the
central rachis.
• In the last of part the gonads gametocytes are formed and become free
from the rachis, here they undergo maturation division to form eggs or
sperms. The last part of gonads where developing gametes undergo
maturation are referred to as the maturation zone.
• The sperms are amoeboid in shape, while eggs are elliptical in shape.
Life cycle - Stages
Copulation –
• It takes place in host’s intestine.
• During copulation male Ascaris moves in such a way that its
cloacal aperture faces the vulva of the female and then male thrusts its
penial setae to open the vulva of female.
• The cloacal wall of male contracts, sperms are transferred into the
vagina of the female.
• Sperms then move to the seminal receptacle and lie there and wait
for eggs to come through the oviduct for fertilisation.
Fertilization –
• During fertilisation the entire sperm enters the egg.
• Soon, after fertilisation the glycogen globules of the egg migrate to the surface to form the fertilisation membrane which
soon hardens into a thick, clear inner chitinous shell. Soon, thereafter, the fat globules of the egg form a lipid layer below
the chitinous shell.
• Now, as the fertilised egg passes down, the uterine wall secretes an outer thick, yellow or brown albuminous (proteinous)
coat or outer shell having a characteristic wavy surface or rippling’s. These eggs are elliptical in shape.
Zygote -
• So, the zygote has a thick, clear inner shell, a lipid layer and an outer shell
which is warty and yellow or brown in colour.
• The zygotes are laid by female Ascaris in the small intestine of the host
where they pass out with the faeces. One female may lay from 15,000 to
200,000 eggs in a day.
• Eggs fall on the ground and can remain alive for months in the moist soil. In
order to develop they require oxygen, moisture and a temperature lower
than that of the human body, the most favourable temperature is 85°F.
Early Development (Outside the Host) -
• The stages of early embryonic development, i.e., the
cleavage/segmentation start in the soil. The pattern of cleavage is spiral
and determinate.
Development in soil -
• The fertilised egg undergoes two cleavages to form four cells or blastomeres; the first cleavage results in a
dorsal cell AB and a ventral cell P1, the second cleavage causes AB to divide into an anterior cell A and a
posterior cell. B, while the ventral cell P1 divides into a dorsal cell EMST and a ventral cell P2.
• These four cells are at first arranged in the shape of a T, but later they become arranged in a rhomboid
shape, as P2 comes to lie posterior to EMST. However, these four cells are now called A, B, P2 and S2 or
EMST. These cells undergo further cleavage to form smaller blastomeres.
• However, in the next cleavage A and B divide into A1, A2 and B1 B2 cells respectively, P2 divides into P3 and C,
while EMST into MST and E. Thereafter, P3 and E divide into P4 and D and E1 and E2 respectively. The
P4 further divides into G1 and G2.
• The fate of the various cells resulted is fixed, i.e., the descendants of A and B will give rise to the entire
ectoderm, except that of the posterior end, MST form the mesoderm of the body wall, pseudocoel cells, and
the lining of the stomodaeum, the descendants of E (E1 and E2) give rise to the entire endoderm of the
intestine, the descendants of P4 (G1 and G2) will give rise the germ cells and C and D will together take part in
the formation of ectoderm and mesoderm.
Thus, the cleavage of embryonic cells continues giving rise to a blastula at the 16-celled stage bearing a cavity
called blastocoel. Then gastrula is formed by epiboly or overgrowth of ectodermal cells over the endodermal
cells, and by invagination of stomodaeum and endodermal cells.
Formation of juvenile larva and its moulting –
• Finally a juvenile is resulted in about 10-14 days from the beginning of segmentation. Structurally, a juvenile possesses an
alimentary canal, a nerve ring and a lateral excretory system.
• This juvenile resembles very much with Rhabditis (a soil nematode), hence, it
is also referred to as rhabditiform larva or rhabditoid. This larva
moults within the egg shell in about 7 days and becomes the
second stage rhabditoid; this stage of the life history of Ascaris
is infective to the host.
Infection to Host –
• It occurs when man swallows the infective eggs of Ascaris with
contaminated food or water. Thus, when the infective eggs reach
in the small intestine of the host, the egg shells are dissolved by the action
of host’s digestive juices and the infective second stage juveniles are set free.
These juveniles are about 0.2-0.3 mm long and have
all the structures of the adults except the reproductive organs.
Later Development in New Host - (Migration of the larvae through liver, heart, lungs and moulting)
• They do not develop in the intestine. They bore through the intestine wall and enter the mesenteric
circulation and pass through the hepatic portal vein to enter the liver, from where they enter the hepatic
vein and through the postcaval vein come to the right side in the heart, from where they are carried several
times through the body along with the blood stream, then they go through pulmonary arteries into the
lungs.
• In the lungs, juveniles rupture the capillaries and enter the alveoli where they live for some days, here they
grow and moult to become 3rd stage larvae, which moult again to become 4th stage larvae.
Re-entry into the intestine and final moulting -
• From the alveoli of the lungs, the 4th stage juveniles make their way through the bronchioles and bronchus
into the trachea and then to the throat from where they are swallowed into the oesophagus and reach the
small intestine for the second time.
• During this 10-day tour, the juveniles have grown about ten times and are 2 to 3 mm long. In the intestine
the fourth and final moulting takes place, and in 60 to 75 days, they grow into adult males and females and
attain sexual maturity. The length of life of the parasite in the host averages only 9 months to a year.
Life history of Ascaris can be represented as:
Adults → fertilised eggs pass out →
larvae develop in egg shell and moult
twice → swallowed by man → intestine
where juveniles hatch → bore through
intestine → mesenteric veins → hepatic
portal vein → liver → hepatic vein →
postcaval vein → right side of heart →
pulmonary artery → lungs → alveoli
where third moulting occurs → bronchioles →
bronchus → trachea → glottis →
oesophagus → intestine where fourth
moulting occurs → grow into adults.
Parasitic Adaptations of Ascaris
• Body is covered externally with resistant cuticle and it also secretes antienzymes; both these protect the worm from the
digestive enzymes of the host.
• Adhesive organs are not found in Ascaris; lack of such organs is compensated by a very poor power of locomotion as by
slight movement it maintains its position in the intestine of the host and also counteracts the intestinal peristalsis.
• As the parasite feeds on digested and predigested food of the host, its alimentary canal is simple and poorly developed but
pharynx being muscular facilitates ingestion by suctorial action.
• Since circulatory system is absent, hence, its function of distributing the digested food to the body tissues and transfer of
waste substances from the tissues to the excretory canals are performed by pseudocoelomic fluid.
• Mode of respiration is anaerobic because it lives in an environment which is nearly fully deficient of oxygen.
• Sense organs are very poorly developed because it leads a sheltered life.
• Production of huge number of eggs compensates the wastage that takes place during their transfer from one host to new
host.
• The hard shelled covering of the eggs protects the developing juveniles from environmental hazards.
• The eggs, being very small in size, are easily dispersed.
• Mode of direct infection due to absence of secondary host from the life history has increased the chances for juveniles to
reach a fresh human host.
Pathogenicity
• The signs and symptoms of the nematode infection by Ascaris
lumbricoides may include the following:
• Abdominal discomfort
• Abdominal cramping
• Abdominal swelling (especially in children)
• Fever
• Coughing and/or wheezing
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Passing roundworms and their eggs in the stool