Blastocrithidia is a genus of parasitic flagellate protist belonging to the family Trypanosomatidae. It is a monoxenous parasite of heteropteran insects, mainly inhabiting their hindgut and glands.
Characteristics In addition to Blastocrithidia, one-host trypanosomatids from hemipteran and dipteran insects have been traditionally placed in genera Crithidia, Leptomonas, Herpetomonas, Rhynchoidomonas, and Wallaceina. Blastocrithidia is characterized by epimastigote morphological forms, whereas opisthomastigotes and endomastigotes are exclusive features of the genera Herpetomonas and Wallaceina, respectively. Blastocrithidia is also able to produce resistant cysts.
Systematics The etymology of the genus name Blastocrithidia derives from the two Ancient Greek words (), meaning "sprout, scion, child or descendant", and (), meaning "small grain of barley".
The genus includes the following species. Blastocrithidia caliroae Lipa, Carl & Valentine 1977 Blastocrithidia cyrtomeni Caicedo et al. 2011 Blastocrithidia euschisti Hanson & McGhee Blastocrithidia familiaris Tieszen et al. 1986 Blastocrithidia gerridis (Patton 1908) Laird 1959 Blastocrithidia largi Maslov and Lukes 2010 Blastocrithidia leptocoridis (McCulloch 1915) Blastocrithidia miridarum Podlipaev & Frolov 1987 Blastocrithidia papi Frolov and Kostygov, 2016 Blastocrithidia raabei Lipa 1966 Blastocrithidia triatomae Cerisola et al. 1971 Blastocrithidia vagoi Tuzet & Laporte 1965 Blastocrithidia nonstop Votýpka & Lukeš, sp. nov.
Genomics Genetic code Blastocrithidia uses in its nuclear genome an alternative genetic code characterized by all three canonical stop codons reassigned to sense codons.
+ Table of alternative codons in Blastocrithidia and comparison with the standard genetic code Genetic code Translation table DNA codon RNA codon Conditional translation Standard translation Blastocrithidia nuclear 31 TAA UAA Ter (*) or Glu (E) Ter (*) TAG UAG Ter (*) or Glu (E) Ter (*) TGA UGA Trp (W) Ter (*)
Amino acids biochemical properties nonpolar polar basic acidic Termination: stop codon
References