Blastocystis Parasite Blog

JITMM2025 presentation on Blastocystis

2025-12-11T12:57:00.009+01:00

Hi,

A few days back, I returned from Bangkok after attending a great JITMM2025 conference.

I promised to upload my presentation on the blog, so here goes:

So, what is it about? Well, with the use of the most recent DNA sequencing technologies, we have the chance to dig further and maybe even more precisely into the molecular epidemiology of Blastocystis. However, new advances are accompanied by new challenges. Here, I highlight some of them, providing concrete examples for each.

I don't do this to put colleagues on the spot; we all make mistakes. I've made many mistakes myself, and we should learn from them and be critical to our data and that of others.

I realised that the notes for the presentation are not visible, so you can read them underneath:

Many thanks for watching.

Bw Rune

Slide 1 Notes:
I would like to thank the organizing committee for including this session on Blastocystis and for inviting me to do this talk.

Slide 2 Notes:
This talk is based primarily on these three articles that we published over the past five years.

Slide 3 Notes:
And the key message of the talk is that widespread misidentification of Blastocystis DNA in GenBank and in articles leads to inflated diversity estimates, incorrect subtyping, and misleading conclusions about host specificity and zoonotic potential.

Slide 4 Notes:
Blastocystis is an organism quite closely related to the potato pathogen, Phytophtora, and the only member of the very heterogeneous group of Stramenopiles known to colonise the human intestinal tract. It belongs to Opalinata, a diverse assemblage of variously modified unicellular eukaryotes.

Importantly, it’s probably the easiest parasite to culture from human stool. A positive culture from a PCR-positive study individual could support and be indicative of active colonisation rather than contamination or mechanical transport through the digestive system

Slide 5 Notes:
It is an organism that colonises the gut of probably more than 1 billion people globally, being the most common single-celled gut parasite of humans. It is also seen in many types of mammals, especially herbivores, and birds. Even insects have tested positive for Blastocystis. As far as I know, it has no invasive properties, and it has never been reported in outbreaks.
It’s physiological and ecological properties have been incompletely described, and its impact on human health and disease is only partly known. However, recent studies link Blastocystis to high gut microbial diversity, beneficial gut microbes, and favourable cardiometabolic parameters.
GenBank contains >15,000 ‘Blastocystis’ small subunit rDNA sequences which form the basis for Blastocystis taxonomy – up to at least 2% of these are not Blastocystis! I’ll give you examples.

Slide 6 Notes:
But first a bit of history. Before 2007, it had been established by especially Graham Clark but also groups in Germany, France and Japan that Blastocystis – despite the lack of differential morphological hallmarks – exhibits extensive genetic diversity, and it had also been established that Blastocystis could be found in not only humans, but also a variety of non-human hosts. However, the name ‘Blastocystis hominis’ that had been used to refer to Blastocystis found in humans turned out to be invalid, since some of the genetic variants of Blastocystis found in humans could also be found in non-human hosts. Therefore, the term Blastocystis hominis was deemed invalid due to technical reasons, and the subtype system was introduced instead, based on recent observations from molecular studies. In 2007, we had identified 9 subtypes from humans, other mammals and birds.

Slide 7 Notes:
An why do we bother with subtyping? We subtype Blastocystis to gain a better understanding of its taxonomy and epidemiology. Maybe different subtypes are associated with health … or disease? Maybe the distribution of subtypes has a geographical component? Which subtypes are host specific, and which ones are shared among different types of hosts – which ones are potentially zoonotic? Research advances rely on our ability to communicate data based on a harmonized and robust terminology.
Combining host specificity data with data on genetic diversity can help us develop a biologically meaningful classical binomial taxonomy for Blastocystis and help us confirm that, in case there is host specificity, it is likely that we are looking at active colonisation rather than random, non-colonising strains from contamination.

Slide 8 Notes:
In 2009, we discovered ST10 in cattle, and by 2013, no less than 17 subtypes had been identified. In 2013, we were still in the pre-NGS era, but we started accepting that we could identify new subtypes based on DNA sequence data only (i.e., at that time we found it not be necessary to be able to demonstrate any new subtype in culture to elevate a sufficiently divergent sequence to a novel subtype).

Slide 9 Notes:
Here in 2025, we are looking at almost 50 subtypes, and we’re still counting, it seems. However, a scenario is developing where the traditional way of subtyping and identifying subtypes are challenged. Fake subtypes have been introduced, and about 2% of all Blastocystis sequences in GenBank are not Blastocystis, which has led to second-generation mis-identification. These are regular errors that hamper scientific progress.

Slide 10 Notes:
And how do we define a novel subtype? Well, until 2023, it had been customary to use at least 4% genetic diversity across 18S sequences to differentiate between subtypes, which means that if two sequences diverge by 4% or more, they were likely belonging to two different subtypes.
It's important to say that until now, it has been customary to sequence only part of the 18S to be able to call a subtype; however, the more sequence material, the better resolution, and the stronger the phylogenetic inferences, since variation exists in different parts of the gene depending on subtype. The barcode region, however, is sufficient to distinguish most subtypes, even today.
In 2023, there was a suggestion to use 2% instead of 4% as a criterion for distinguishing subtypes; however, that would lead to many more subtypes and spoil our attempts to obtain and convey an understanding of the epidemiology of Blastocystis, including host specificity. It would simply dilute the trends observed at the 4% level.

Slide 11 Notes:
In 2017, a team from China introduced five new subtypes. After sequence review, it turned out that only one of these subtypes could be validated as a true Blastocystis subtype. The four other sequences were sequence chimeras or other sequence artefacts. A DNA sequence chimera is an artificial hybrid sequence formed when two or more unrelated DNA fragments are accidentally joined together during PCR amplification or sequencing workflows.
Because it does not exist in nature, a chimera misrepresents the true genetic content of the sample.

Slide 12 Notes:
It has turned out that some sequences referred to as Blastocystis are actually sequences of plants such as those listed here. An even bigger problem, however, is that no less than at least 67 sequences in GenBank are listed as Blastocystis, while in fact being sequences of yeasts. This is very unfortunate, since yeasts are commonly found in the human gut, and therefore, second-generation mis-identification can happen often in the hands of less experienced colleagues.

Slide 13 Notes:
And this already happened often. I will give you some examples. In 2020, Liao and collagues surveyed parasites in dogs in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. They claimed to have found Blastocystis in 35 of 651 canine faecal samples. Well…

Slide 14 Notes:
This is Figure 3 in the publication, and, intuitively, you’d think that this is a typical phylogentic tree of Blastocystis. But you’d become suspicious when you see ST3 clustering with ST1 instead of ST4 and ST8. So, it’s worthwhile taking a closer look into the sequences. All the MK sequences are reference sequences from GenBank, and it says that they are Blastocystis, but they are not. They are yeast DNA sequences, which can easily be verified by simple BLAST queries. And the sequences indicated by filled black circles are study sequences that cluster with the yeast sequences named Blastocystis.

Slide 15 Notes:
So, in fact, this part of the tree is the only part that has Blastocystis sequences in it.

Slide 16 Notes:
So, 11 of these sequences are not Blastocystis. And, after scrutinizing the data in this study, it turns out that the authors had identified only one Blastocystis sequence across 651 dogs. And that was a ST10 sequence that could stem from ingestion of or contamination with ruminant faeces, since ST10 is a ruminant-associated subtype. This is an example of pseudoscience, which undermines science.

Slide 17 Notes:
This is another example. It’s a study by Can and colleagues, appearing in the Polish Journal of Veterinary Sciences in 2021, claiming to have found Blastocystis in stray cats in Turkey.

Slide 18 Notes:
This is Figure 3 from the paper. At the bottom, you see a group comprising 3 reference sequences and seven study sequences clustering with 99% bootstrap. It’s only that the three reference sequences are yeast sequences, which makes all the seven study sequences yeast. So there was no evidence of Blastocystis in any of the 465 cats sampled. But the title of the article said something completely different. Please also note that they had ST4 appearing in two different places in the tree!

Slide 19 Notes:
A study appeared in the MDPI-based journal Animals by Liang and colleagues reporting on Blastocystis in cattle in North China.

Slide 20 Notes:
This is Figure 3 from the paper. It has some true Blastocystis sequences, most of which are ST10, which is quite as expected. No problems with that. However, you can see that ST1 clusters towards the very base of the tree; usually it clusters with subtype 2. So, this gives us a reason to be suspicious. Upon inspection, you would notice that the reference sequences MN696798 and MT645672 referred to as Blastocystis, are not Blastocystis but yeast DNA sequences. This means that the four study sequences seen at the base of the tree are not Blastocystis. Please note ON110353, which sits on a long branch; this could be a sequence artefact that should not have been included in the analysis; subtypes in the apical part of Blastocystis phylogenetic trees rarely sit on long branches.

Slide 21 Notes:
There are several other examples. And the major issue here is that such errors make us underestimate the host specificity of Blastocystis and blur the epidemiology of Blastocystis.

Slide 22 Notes:
There are many more sequences in GenBank claimed to be Blastocystis that may be associated with error, and I’m happy to discuss that with those who are interested.

Slide 23 Notes:
Here, I’ve listed some of the reasons why mis-annotation might happen. In the interest of time, I won’t go through them. I will post my presentation on the Blastocystis blog, so you can access the slides from there.

Slide 24 Notes:
So, at least 200 DNA sequences submitted to GenBank and used across more than 40 published studies have been named ‘Blastocystis’ although they are seqeunces of other genera or regular artefacts. Misidentification of Blastocystis is commonly observed, affecting subtype nomenclature, creating confusion, and leading to false biological conclusions.

Slide 25 Notes:
So, how do we proceed from here? It’s important to use integrative approaches. For instance, results from the use of NGS/TGS to detect and differentiate Blastocystis can be informed by results from short-term in-vitro culture. Sanger sequencing can be used to verify new subtypes identified by NGS/TGS. Experts should be consulted in cases of doubt, BLAST queries should be validated by colleagues, and a curated database should be used instead of GenBank.

Slide 26 Notes:
Indeed, the BlastoDB is a curated database in development under the Blastocystis One Health COST Action and is hosted at the University of Kent, the UK

Slide 27 Notes:
Anastasios Tsaousis is coordinating it with a small steering group covering genomics, subtype nomenclature, and database infrastructure (Rune Stensvold, Eleni Gentekaki, and Andrew Roger).
It will function as a curated reference resource rather than just another “dumping ground”: there will be clear inclusion criteria, consistent subtype calls, and proper metadata (host, geography, methods, etc.).

Slide 28 Notes:
Crucial to the development, maintenance and expansion of the database is the contribution of sequence data (genes, genomes, etc.) and Blastocystis strains (live cultures and DNAs). We are actively looking for data and strains that can populate the BlastoDB and a BioBank that are being established, so please let us know if you’re interested to help. Samples can be sent for free at the moment. Let us help each other to increase the quality of Blastocystis research!

Slide 29 Notes:
I want to thank you all very much for listening, and I want to extend special thanks to the Department of Protozoology at the Mahidol University. Thank you.

Towards minimizing second-generation mis-identification of Blastocystis - continued

2025-08-19T17:55:00.015+02:00

Hi all,

I hope you're well!

A great of deal of Blastocystis research involves surveys and increasing our insight into Blastocystis epidemiology. We do this in order to understand what role this organism plays in health and disease, how we get it, where we get it from, etc.

Central to such research is our ability to 'speak together' - to have a standardised languge - standardised systems. When we analyse Blastocystis DNA sequences obtained from the stool of human individuals or from the environment (including water and faeces from animals), we need to be able to compare them with other sequences to find out whether they are different or not. That's why we developed the subtype system back in 2007, a terminology that is still in use. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to 'rely' on Blastocystis reference data because of an increasing amount of misinformation in the NCBI Database, a resource that holds genetic information on the many forms that life has taken, and which is probably used by tens of thousands of people across the globe for reference.

Last year, we published "Towards minimizing second-generation mis-identification of Blastocystis" in Trends in Parasitology, with a view to make our colleagues aware of DNA sequences in the NCBI Database wrongly annotated as 'Blastocystis'. You will there find a collection of sequences that are not Blastocystis even though it says that they are. I hope you think it's informative and helpful.

Since then, however, more sequences have come to my attention that are named 'Blastocystis' but that are not (they are sequences of yeast):

There are 16 sequences from Yunnan, China: PQ817670-PQ817679 and PV363977-PV363982.

Moreover, I believe that these four sequences from Korea are also yeast: OR447548-OR447551.

There may be other recent ones in GenBank that I haven't noticed yet, so watch out.

Therefore: For sequence comparisons, including sequence alignment and phylogentic analyses, I highly recommend using the collection of reference strains collated by Prof Graham Clark available here. I consider these my 'go-to collection', and they can be considered curated. It's the best database we have at the moment for identifying Blastocystis at subtype level.

If you're in doubt, you're always welcome to take contact to me.

Doctoral Thesis (DMSc) on Blastocystis and friends

2025-01-28T12:02:00.004+01:00

Hello!

For those of you still following this blog: I haven't disappeared, and parasites still rule my life, it seems!

As a compensation for lack of regular postings, I give you the link to a dissertation that I wrote up a couple of years back on Blastocystis and other single-celled intestinal parasites.

The thesis provides insigt into the work that has gone into detecting and differentiating single-celled intestinal parasites of unknown clinical and public health significance.

There is a focus on genetic diversity and host specificity, which are parameters that can help us hypothesise on transmission patterns, virulence, phylogeography and other epidemiolgical features of these parasites.

Mark your calendars: 4th International Blastocystis Conference - in Crete!

2024-02-27T16:58:00.003+01:00

Hello all,

I'ts been a while, but I hope that you've been updating yourself through various networks, social media platforms, and what not.

Importantly, please mark your calendar for the 4th International Blastocystis Conference in Crete on the 18-19 September, 2024. Moreover, on the day before the conference (17^th of September 2024) we will organise two parallel workshops, one on the Epidemiology of Blastocystis (Working Group 1 of the COST Action) and the other one on subtyping (Working Group 2 of the COST Action).

You can find more info on the conference here.

And more about the COST action on Blastocystis here and here.

We hope to see as many of you there as possible!

This is your chance to meet all of us old Blasto-Buggers who never seize to be amazed... ! 😀

Bonus info: The 1st International Blastocystis Conference took place in Ankara in 2015 and was organised by Prof Funda Dogruman-Al and her lovely team. The next one took place in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2018, where Prof Juan-David Ramirez and his great colleagues pulled off a really nice event. The third one was a virtual on (during COVID) in 2021, and now we look forward to the fourth one in the Mediterranean Sea!

PhD Fellowship in Intestinal Microbiome Analysis and Parasites as Health and Disease Biomarkers

2023-05-26T11:32:00.000+02:00

For quite a while, I have had the undiluted pleasure of working with Prof Mark van der Giezen, who is currently based at the University of Stavanger.

Mark is a PI on a large grant from the Norwegian Research Council, and I will be co-supervising one of the projects, which is the following:

"PhD Fellowship in Intestinal Microbiome Analysis and Parasites as Health and Disease Biomarkers"

There will, of course, be special emphasis on Blastocystis, but we will also be looking at other common intestinal parasites, and the relationship between these and core host gut microbiota signatures.

Particularly those with experience and training in epidemiology and/or bioinformatics can now apply for this PhD position. You can read much more about the aim of the study and key qualifications here.

Most of the work will be carried out at the institute where I work, the Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen.

Have a great weekend ahead!

EU-COST-NUS Workshop: Blastocystis Culture & Applications

2023-02-27T11:44:00.002+01:00

Hi all,

Exciting times ahead!

The first training school of our Action will take place between the 30th of May until 1st of June 2023 at the National University of Singapore. Thanks to Dr. Kevin Tan for organising this.

You can find more information here and register to attend the meeting my completing the form here.

Our Action will support 14-15 trainees to attend the Training School. To apply for a financial support to attend this training school you will need to complete the form below no latter than the 10th of March 2023.

Due to the tight timeline and quick turnover, we won’t consider any applications submitted after this deadline.

For criteria selection, priority will be given to:

Applicants that have relevant research to Blastocystis or they are aiming to apply this knowledge to future Blastocystis research
One applicant per COST member country
Early career researchers
Keeping a gender balance
We cannot provide financial support for participants that are affiliated with non-COST member countries. See eligibility here: https://www.cost.eu/about/members/

We would like to inform the succesful applicants before the 15th of March. If you have any questions regarding the application procedure, please contact Dr. Eleni Gentekaki: E.Gentekaki@kent.ac.uk

Please feel free to forward this information across your networks.

Kind regards,

Anastasios Tsaousis

SSU rDNA reference sequence database for Blastocystis and Entamoeba

2022-12-13T17:28:00.010+01:00

Hello everyone,

Service update:

I've had a couple of people asking me where to fetch a curated collection of reference SSU rDNA sequences of Blastocystis (and Entamoeba). Please go here!

Have fun!

Maybe this is also an opportunity for me to encourage participation in the Blastocystis COST network; for more information on this, please go here. Soon, there will be a designated website for the activities.

PhD position on Blastocystis and more in Mark van der Giezen's lab, Norway

2022-09-20T13:40:00.001+02:00

I HAVE to post this!

Fully #funded #PhD #studentship in #intestinal #microbiology as part of a large interdisciplinary @forskningsradet funded study into the role of #microbial #eukaryotes and #inflammatory #bowel #disease (#IBD) in #Norway.https://t.co/T44t5ATmqB #AcademicTwitter @UniStavanger
— Mark van der Giezen (@MitoRem) September 20, 2022

This PhD position is one of more that are linked to the project "The Role of Blastocystis in inflammatory bowel disease".

If you or somebody you know share our interests in the interplay between common eukaryotic endosymbionts, gut bacteria and host health/disease and have an appropriate background (see call above), then please don't hesitate to apply - you'd be in for SO much fun! And you'd also get the opportunity to partake in the COST Blastocystis in One Health network that will going on for the next four years. You will very quickly become part of 'the Blastocystis community' and what not, and you'll join us in our endeavours to learn how we can put our knowledge into use.

Go and apply! :-)

Intestinal parasites - where are we going? Ask @ ICOPA2022!

2022-07-29T08:48:00.003+02:00

Billions of people host single-celled intestinal parasites, but what do we really know about these organisms and the way they impact our lives? Register virtually/on-site for #ICOPA2022 to learn more on this and go here for more inspiration.

Note that registration is still possible, and that one can register for on-site or virtual attendance. Please spread the word!

🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡

https://icopa2022.org/

Still possible to register for ICOPA2022 at the regular rate

2022-07-21T11:11:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

We are so excited and looking forward to receiving a great number of scientists here in Copenhagen for the ICOPA 2022 event in exactly month from now!

Please note that you can still register at the regulate rate - please go here for more information. After July 27, the on-site registration fee will apply. Please note that you can register for on-site participation and also for virtual attendance only, if you think you cannot make it to Copenhagen. The fee for virtual participation is €350 (€225 for students).

Of course, there will be talks and posters involving Blastocystis - for starters, I can mention the following sessions:

PA04-02 - Giardia, Entamoeba, Blastocystis: 2.3 Intestinal parasitic diseases

PA09-04 - Symposium - Blastocystis: Updates on detection, molecular epidemiology, and molecular and cell biologyTopic: 3.5 Parasitic zoonoses and vector-borne diseases

PA10-05 - Other studies of parasites of domestic and wild animals: 3.6 Other studies related to parasites of domestic and wild animals

PA08-07 - One Health with a social sciences twist

- and no less than 10 sessions are scheduled that will contain talks involving the microbiome!

And then of course, there will be a multitude of talks and posters on other intestinal parasites.

Why not go and familiarise yourself with the interactive programme here.

See you soon!

Blastocystis under One Health - EU economic support for a COST proposal

2022-05-31T07:09:00.001+02:00

Goodness - time flies! We are busy prepping for the ICOPA2022 - please remember early bird registration deadline is 1 June, 2022! Go here for more information.

Meanwhile, I'm thrilled to be able to announce that The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) has decided to support our project "Blastocystis under One Health", led by Dr Anastasios Tsaousis (Tasos)! There will be economic support to cover four years of networking and teaching activities across Europe - everything with the aim to strengthen research into Blastocystis and its role in health and disease. Here is a summary of the project:

Blastocystis colonizes at least one billion people making it the most prevalent intestinal microbial eukaryote.Emerging data indicates higher prevalence in animals. A high proportion of carriers are asymptomatic. Despite numerous studies, the pathogenicity of Blastocystis remains controversial. Currently, at least 26 genetic subtypes (STs) exist. Of these, ST1-ST9 and ST12 have been found in humans, while the rest have been
isolated only from non-human hosts. Information on prevalence, geographic distribution and host specificity of STs is incomplete. Significant gaps also exist on the environmental presence of Blastocystis. Collectively, this paucity of data blurs the Blastocystis landscape considerably. The specific objectives of this framework are to: (1) Support advancement of Blastocystis research by bringing together professionals from various disciplines and countries; (2) Foster information sharing on current methodologies, especially in the areas of subtyping, host-Blastocystis-microbiome interactions and Blastocystis-omics; (3) Promote capacity building via a transdisciplinary network of international collaboration; (4) Open avenues of communication with veterinarians, physicians and the general public. By the end of this initiative, participants will be able to: (i) Apply state-of-the-art tools for molecular identification of Blastocystis; (ii) Harmonise methodologies for subtyping
Blastocystis and identifying its role within the gut; (iii) View Blastocystis under One Health approach; (iv) Generate novel hypotheses to test role of Blastocystis in the gut ecosystem, health and disease.

Scientists from a great number of countries will participate, including the COST countries Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, and United Kingdom. International partner countries include Canada, Colombia, Japan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States.

Our project received a score of 46/50.

Apart from Tasos, who should receive the highest possible accolade for this achievement, a number of people made significant contributions to the proposal, including Eleni Gentekaki, Mark van der Giezen, Graham Clark, and myself.

This is a massive advancement in Blastocystis research, and will take the research into and knowledge about this peculiar organism to a completely different level. I expect a lot from the next few years' work with Blastocystis, and personally, I'm very interested in exploring how we can "use" Blastocystis as an indicator organism and - potentially - a manipulator of gut bacterial communities!

Stay tuned for more information! And I'll see some of you at ICOPA2022 in August!

Abstract deadline for ICOPA2022 - ICOPAnhagen!

2022-02-03T12:34:00.005+01:00

Hola everyone!

Did you upload your suggestion(s) for ICOPA2022 symposia? If yes - good! If not - don't worry; you still have lots of opportunity to share your parasitology research.

Deadline for regular abstract submission is 8 March, 2022.

Go here to submit.

For more information on ICOPA2022 - go here.

Cheers!

ICOPA2022 Deadline approaching: You've got one more week to submit your Symposium Proposals!

2022-01-20T09:20:00.006+01:00

Hello everyone,

In the LOC and SC we are working hard to develop the ICOPA2022 conference YOU would like to attend.

But we need input from you as well! Please note that the deadline for submission of Symposium proposals is 31 January, 2022.

Deadline for abstracts is 8 March, 2022. You can browse the list of Abstract topics here.

So, please go ahead an submit!

It is teamwork! 💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡 Yellow t-shirts look busy preparing symposia proposals to #ICOPAnhagen - deadline is 31 January! Did you submit yours already? #ICOPA2022 @_SBSP_ @DParasitology @WorldFedPara pic.twitter.com/op5dP5wwRa
— International Congress of Parasitology - ICOPA (@ICOPAnhagen) January 20, 2022

ICOPA2022: Abstract submission is open!

2021-12-10T13:33:00.002+01:00

Hello everyone!

In case you didn't see this already, abstracts and proposals for symposia can now be submitted to the ICOPA2022 website!

Deadline for abstracts: 8 March.

Deadline for symposia: 31 January.

Please also make sure to get more updates on social media - we're on FB, Twitter, and IG.

Search terms: #ICOPA2022 and #icopanhagen

It's time! 💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛 https://t.co/qGpJuIp6gZ
— Chr. Rune Stensvold (@Eukaryotes) December 7, 2021

Special Issue on Blastocystis in Frontiers

2021-07-01T07:56:00.002+02:00

In the wake of the 3rd Int'l Blastocystis Conference (2-4 June, 2021), we're pleased that Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology (one of the sponsors of the conference) has launched a specific research topic:

"Putting Blastocystis on the Spot: Examining the Biology, Ecology and Epidemiology of a Controversial Gut Microbe"

Topic editors include Tasos, Eleni, Kevin, Funda, and myself. I personally hope to see and review some very interesting studies, and - in line with my thoughts in the previous blog post - I particularly hope to see data on Blastocystis in en ecological context.

Please go here for more information.

Personal Post-Conference Thoughts on Future Blastocystis Research

2021-06-30T18:00:00.013+02:00

I'm still on a high after the 3rd Int'l Blastocystis Conference! The Scientific Committee is in the process of putting together a TrendsTalk paper for Trends in Parasitology to provide a brief summary of the different topics presented at the conference, including some important updates.

I personally think Blastocystis research has come a long way since I entered the field back in 2004, but I would like to call for more cross-disciplinary approaches to studying the parasite.

In particular, we need to stimulate a research interest in bioinformaticians, vets, food microbiologists, and gastroenterologists.

The bioinformatics people should help us analyze NGS data (shotgun, metabarcoding) and provide some robust and guidelines for cut-offs for e.g. Blastocystis positivity and negativity in NGS data.

Vets should be interested in studying the differences in Blastocystis colonization across different animal populations and find out what drives colonization and the impact is has on the host and host gut microbiota. Studying the relationships of these microbes in animals can help us understand these relationships in humans. Vets should help us find out why Blastocystis is so common in ruminants and so rare in carnivores.

To this end, food microbiologists should take an interest to study associations and interactions between Blastocystis, the gut microbiota and the host. Including metabolomics. Diet as a driver of colonization should be investigated.

Finally, gastroenterologists should take an interest in Blastocystis to identify its positive or negative association to various GI diseases (IBS, IBD, microscopic colitis, coeliac disease, diverticulosis, colon cancer, etc, etc.)

We should take advantage of the fact that Blastocystis is one of the few intestinal parasites that can easily be cultured, which means that cells can be used for in vivo and in vitro experiments. Protocols should be developed for encystment, and cyst production on a larger scale should be enabled, since cysts can be used for oral administration.

The current shift in paradigm that reflects the recognition of Blastocystis as marker of intestinal eubiosis could be supported and expanded by increasing the involvement of these types of professions.

Wrap-up of 3rd International Blastocystis Conference

2021-06-08T06:23:00.006+02:00

The 3rd International Blastocystis Conference took place Wednesday-Friday last week.

Organising committee:

Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis
Eleni Gentekaki
Chr. Rune Stensvold
Funda Dogruman-Al

Scientific committee:

Kevin S W Tan
Özgür Kurt
Eleni Gentekaki
Chr. Rune Stensvold
Funda Dogruman-Al
Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis

Sponsors included

Microbiology Society
Biology - MDPI
PCR Biosystems

The conference was facilitated by Top Kinisis

The conference in numbers:

3-day conference
73 attendees
29 countries represented
66 abstracts
38 oral presentations
28 poster presentations
265 tweets using #Blastocystis21 as hashtag
3 awards

Awards:

Blastocystis Quiz Award: Mark van der Giezen (@MitoRem)

Poster Award: Adriana Marcela Higuera Gelvez (Draft genomes of Blastocystis isolates from human samples in Bogotá, Colombia)

Oral Presentation:

Winner: Jamie Newton (Investigating the metabolic fluctuations of the human gut during Blastocystis infection)
1st runner-up: Lei Deng (Experimental colonization with Blastocystis ST4 is associated with protective immune response and modulation of gut microbiome in a DSS-induced colitis mouse model)
2nd runner-up: Zuzana Lhotska and Vincent Billy (back-to-back presentations: Blastocystis colonization alters host immune response and gut microbiome, part a and b, respectively)

A special issue 'Putting Blastocystis on the Spot: Examining the Biology, Ecology and Epidemiology of a controversial gut microbe' has been launched in Frontiers. This Research Topic is linked to the conference. You can go here for more information.

The 4th International Blastocystis Conference is planned to take place in Chania, Crete, Greece in 2024.

Last, but not least a couple of screen capture impressions from the conference:

I will be back shortly with more updates from the conference.

Full Programme for the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference Available

2021-05-28T12:42:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone,

You can access the full programme for the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference here.

Huge international support for the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference

2021-05-07T13:55:00.004+02:00

Representatives from more than 20% of all countries in the World have contributed scientific abstracts for the 3rd International Blastocystis conference! #Blastocystis @blastocystis - you rock @CiliateGal @ADTsaousis !
— Chr. Rune Stensvold (@Eukaryotes) May 7, 2021

The 3rd Blastocystis Conference will be AWESOME!

2021-05-05T13:24:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone,

We're currently going through the abstracts submitted for the upcoming Blastocystis conference, which will be held exclusively online.

The scientific quality of the abstracts is very high, and participants in this year's conference are in for a veritable treat!

Expect important and potentially game-changing updates on host-pathogen interactions, cell biology and evolution, epidemiology, intestinal ecology, diagnosis and molecular characterisation.

Use this opportunity to obtain answers to all of your Blastocystis questions.

We are very much overwhelmed about the interest for this event and the support.

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

One Health Parasitology Conference in Brazil: XXVII Congresso Da Sociedade Brasileira De Parasitologia

2021-04-29T06:47:00.004+02:00

'Parasitologia na perspectiva da Saúde Única'

Happy and thankful to be part of this years congress in parasitology in The XXVII Congress of the Brazilian Society of Parasitology - PARASITO-2021, which will be held online
from May 4th to 6th, 2021.

The programme is available here for download.

In my talk, I'll be giving examples of the applicability of the metabarcoding assay in place at our institute (Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen) for detecting and differentiating parasites in various matrices from humans, other animals and the environment.

Abstract Deadline Extension

2021-04-14T11:50:00.004+02:00

Message from Tasos:

Dear Blastocystis colleagues and enthusiasts,

I would like to remind you that the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference (http://blastocystis2021.com ) will take place virtually between 2nd to 4th of June 2021

We have extended the abstract submission deadline until the 30th of April (http://blastocystis2021.com/abstract-guidelines/ )!

Please note that the early-bird registration deadline remains the same and is approaching soon (tomorrow): April 15th, 2021 (http://blastocystis2021.com/registration/ ).

Participants from LMICs will receive a 20% discount in their registration fees. Please contact the Conference Secretariat (synedrio@topkinisis.com ) to register at the discounted rate.

For frequent updates, please follow us on twitter: @Blastocystis21 . Please do also spread the word!

If you require any information, please do not hesitate to contact me and I am looking forward to seeing you (even virtually) in June 2021.

Best wishes,

Anastasios (Tasos) Tsaousis

on behalf of the Organizing Committee

2021-03-25T06:41:00.001+01:00

Dear all,

This is to remind you that the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference (http://blastocystis2021.com) will take place virtually between 2nd to 4th of June 2021 and currently both the registration (http://blastocystis2021.com/registration/) and the abstract submissions are open (http://blastocystis2021.com/abstract-guidelines/), with the deadlines for abstract submission and early-bird registration approaching soon: April 15th, 2021.

Participants from LMICs will receive a 20% discount in their registration fees. Please contact the Conference Secretariat (synedrio@topkinisis.com) to register at the discounted rate.

For frequent updates, please follow us on twitter: @Blastocystis21 . Please do also spread the word!

We look forward to seeing you (even virtually) in June 2021.

Special Issue in Microorganisms "Evolution and Genetic Diversity of Gut Protozoan Parasites"

2021-01-20T09:43:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone,

Please consider the new Special Issue (SI) in Microorganisms (section on Parasitology) 'Evolution and Genetic Diversity of Gut Protozoan Parasites' if you wish to publish data on these topics and you're looking for target journals. We use the term 'protozoan' broadly so that it also comprises Blastocystis.

This SI will be co-edited by Anastasios Tsaousis (yes, our next Blastocystis conference organiser!) and myself.

We welcome articles (original articles and reviews) that significantly contribute data on the genetic diversity and evolution of gut protozoan parasites. We are particularly interested in articles that use or introduce novel technologies and/or approaches to investigate these matters. We are also interested in research investigating the host specificity and geographical distribution of these parasites. Research dealing with how the extent of genetic diversity reflects host adaptation will receive special priority. Moreover, we specifically call for research that deals with gut parasites in a gut microbiome context.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.

Please go here for more information.

Thanks for your consideration.

3rd International Blastocystis Conference - abstract submission open!

2021-01-14T06:03:00.001+01:00

Hi Everyone, and a very Happy New Year!

Please note that abstract submission and registration for the 3rd International Blastocystis Conference (virtual, 2nd to 4th of June) is now OPEN! Click here to register and share your Blastocystis research!

We have registration fees as low as € 15 for early birds!

For Twitter users, please also follow @Blastocystis21 for updates.

Our website is now live along with the abstract submission for the next #Blastocystis Conference! Spread the word! 145 days to go ...
@Blastocystis #protists #abstractsubmission #Blastocystis21 https://t.co/T3mX9bv4Jf
— Blastocystis 2021 (@Blastocystis21) January 7, 2021