= Plasmodium
{c}
<Plasmodium> is a genus of unicellular <eukaryotic> <parasites> that includes the organisms causing <malaria>. Its members have a <cell nucleus> and specialized <organelles>; they are not <bacteria>. In the <malaria> life cycle, multiplication in a <vertebrate> <host> alternates with development in a mosquito <vector>. Different stages occupy different <host> environments.
Many <malaria> <parasites> retain an <apicoplast>, an <organelle> descended from a <plastid>. A blood-stage study connected its essential role to production of isoprenoid precursors: replacing the missing metabolic output could bypass <organelle> loss in that experimental context. <Chemical rescue of malaria parasites lacking an apicoplast defines organelle function in blood-stage Plasmodium falciparum by Ellen Yeh and others>[2011, abstract: apicoplast loss and identification of essential isoprenoid-precursor production in the asexual blood stage]{ref} The result concerns a defined life stage and does not imply that every <organelle> function is dispensable throughout the <parasite>'s life cycle.
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