Plasmodium (life cycle)

A plasmodium is a living structure of cytoplasm that contains many nuclei, rather than being divided into individual cells each with a single nucleus.

The resulting structure, a coenocyte, is created by many nuclear divisions without the process of cytokinesis, which in other organisms pulls newly-divided cells apart.

Under suitable conditions, plasmodia differentiates and forms fruiting bodies bearing spores at their tips.

The term plasmodium, introduced by Leon Cienkowski,[2] usually refers to the feeding stage of slime molds; these are macroscopic mycetozoans.

[3] The multinucleate developmental stages of some intracellular parasites, namely Microsporidia (now in Fungi) and Myxosporidia (now in Cnidaria), former cnidosporans, are also sometimes called plasmodia.