Platyhelminthes: Characteristics and Types

Platyhelminthes are bilaterally symmetrical and triploblastic animals, in other words their left and right sides are mirror images of each other; this also implies that they have distinct top and bottom surfaces, and distinct head and tail ends. Like other bilaterians they have three main cell layers, while the radially symmetrical cnidarians and ctenophores “(comb jellies)” have only two cell layers. Unlike other bilaterians, platyhelminthes have no internal body cavity and are therefore described as acoelomates. They also lack specialized circulatory and respiratory organs. Their bodies are soft and unsegmented.

Features common to all sub-groups

The lack of circulatory and respiratory organs limits platyhelminths to sizes and shapes that enable oxygen to reach and carbon dioxide to leave all parts of their bodies by simple diffusion. Hence many are microscopic and the large species have flat ribbon-like or leaf-like shapes. The guts of large species have many branches, so that nutrients can diffuse to all parts of the body. Respiration through the whole surface of the body makes platyhelminthes vulnerable to fluid loss, and restricts them to environments where dehydration is unlikely: sea and freshwater; moist terrestrial environments such as leaf litter or between grains of soil; and as parasites within other animals.

The space between the skin and gut is filled with mesenchyme, a connective tissue that is made of cells and reinforced by collagen fibers that act as a type of skeleton, providing attachment points for muscles. The mesenchyme contains all the internal organs and allows the passage of oxygen, nutrients and waste products. It consists of two main types of cell: fixed cells, some of which have fluid-filled vacuoles; and stem cells, which can transform into any other type of cell, and are used in regenerating tissues after injury or asexual reproduction. Also they have epidermal cells that are typically multiciliated, each cell bearing multiple cilia rather than only one.

Most platyhelminths have no anus and regurgitate undigested material through the mouth. However, some long species have an anus and some with complex branched guts have more than one anus, since excretion only through the mouth would be difficult for them. The gut is lined with a single layer of endodermal cells which absorb and digest food. Some species break up and soften food first by secreting enzymes in the gut or pharynx.

All animals need to keep the concentration of dissolved substances in their body fluids at a fairly constant level. Internal parasites and free-living marine animals live in environments that have high concentrations of dissolved material, and generally let their tissues have the same level of concentration as the environment, while freshwater animals need to prevent their body fluids from becoming too dilute. Despite this difference in environments, most platyhelminths use the same system to control the concentration of their body fluids. Flame cells, so called because the beating of their flagella looks like a flickering candle flame, extract from the mesenchyme water that contains wastes and some re-usable material, and drive it into networks of tube cells which are lined with flagella and microvilli. The tube cells’ flagella drive the water towards exits called nephridiopores, while their microvilli re-absorb re-usable materials and as much water as is needed to keep the body fluids at the right concentration. These combinations of flame cells and tube cells are called protonephredia.

In all platyhelminths the nervous system is concentrated at the head end. This is least marked in the acoels, which have nerve nets rather like those of cnidarians and ctenophores, but densest around the head. Other platyhelminths have rings of ganglia in the head and main nerve trunks running along their bodies

Classification

Traditional invertebrate zoology divides the platyhelminthes into four groups:

Turbellaria, Trematoda, Monogenea and Cestoda. In this classification Turbellaria includes the Acoelomorpha.

Turbellaria

These have about 4,500 species, are mostly free-living, and range from 1 mm (0.039 in) to 600 mm (24 in) in length. Most are predators or scavengers, and terrestrial species are mostly nocturnal and live in shaded humid locations such as leaf litter or rotting wood. However, some are symbiotes of other animals such as crustaceans, and some are parasites. Free-living turbellarians are mostly black, brown or gray, but some larger ones are brightly colored.

Turbellarians have no cuticle (external layer of organic but non-cellular material). In a few species the skin is a syncitium, a collection of cells with multiple nuclei and a single shared external membrane. However the skins of most species consist of a single layer of cells, each of which generally has multiple cilia (small mobile “hairs”), although in some large species the upper surface has no cilia. These skins are also covered with microvilli between the cilia. They have many glands, usually submerged in the muscle layers below the skin and connect to the surface by pores through which they secrete mucus, adhesives and other substances.

Small aquatic species use the cilia for locomotion, while larger ones use muscular movements of the whole body or of a specialized sole to creep or swim. Some are capable of burrowing, anchoring their rear ends at the bottom of the burrow and then stretching the head up to feed and then pulling it back down for safety. Some terrestrial species throw a thread of mucus which they use as a rope to climb from one leaf to another.

Most turbellarians have pigment-cup ocelli (“little eyes”), one pair in most species but two or even three pairs in some. A few large species have many eyes in clusters over the brain, mounted on tentacles, or spaced uniformly round the edge of the body. The ocelli can only distinguish the direction from which light is coming and enable the animals to avoid it. A few groups – mainly catenulids, acoelomorphs and seriates – have statocysts, fluid-filled chambers containing a small solid particle or, in a few groups, two. These statocysts are thought to be balance and acceleration sensors, as that is the function they perform in cnidarian medusae and in ctenophores. However, turbellarian statocysts have no sensory cilia, and it is unknown how they sense the movements and positions of the solid particles. On the other hand most have ciliated touch-sensor cells scattered over their bodies, especially on tentacles and around the edges. Specialized cells in pits or grooves on the head are probably smell-sensors.

Planaria, a sub-group of seriates, are famous for their ability to regenerate if divided by cuts across their bodies. Experiments show that, in fragments that do not already have a head, a new head grows most quickly on those that were closest to the original head. This suggests that the growth of a head is controlled by a chemical whose concentration diminishes from head to tail. Many turbellarians clone themselves by transverse or longitudinal division, and others, especially acoels, reproduce by budding.

All turbellarians are hermaphrodites, in other words have both female and male reproductive cells, and fertilize eggs internally by copulation. In most species “miniature adults” emerge when the eggs hatch, but a few large species produce plankton-like larvae.

Digenea

These are often called flukes as most have flat rhomboid shapes like that of a flounder. They have about 11,000 species. Adults usually have two holdfasts, a ring round the mouth and a larger sucker midway along what would be the underside in a free-living flatworm. Although the name “Digeneans” means “two generations”, most have very complex lifecycles with up to seven stages, depending on what combinations of environments the early stages encounter – most importantly whether the eggs are deposited on land or in water. The intermediate stages transfer the parasites from one host to another. The definitive host in which adults develop is a

Life cycle of a fluke

land vertebrate, the earliest host of juvenile stages is usually a snail that may live on land or in water, and in many cases a fish or arthropod is the second host. For example, the adjoining illustration shows the life cycle of the intestinal fluke metagonimus, which hatches in the intestine of a snail; moves to a fish where it penetrates the body and encysts in the flesh; then moves to the small intestine of a land animal that eats the fish raw; and then generates eggs that are excreted and ingested by snails, thereby completing the cycle.

Adults range between 0.2 mm (0.0079 in) and 6 mm (0.24 in) in length. Individual adult digeneans are of a single sex, and in some species slender females live in enclosed grooves that run along the bodies of the males, and partially emerge to lay eggs. In all species the adults have complex reproductive systems and can produce between 10,000 and 100,000 times as many eggs as a free-living flatworm. In addition the intermediate stages that live in snails reproduce asexually.

Adults of different species infest different parts of the definitive host, for example the intestine, lungs, large blood vessels, and liver. The adults use a relatively large, muscular pharynx to ingest cells, cell fragments, mucus, body fluids or blood. In both the adults and the stages that life in snails, the external syncytium absorbs dissolved nutrients from the host. Adult digeneans can live without oxygen for long periods.

Major organs and systems in an adult Chinese liver fluke

Aspidogastrea

Members of this small group have either a single divided sucker or a row of suckers that cover the underside. They infest the guts of bony or cartilaginous fish and of turtles, and the body cavities of marine and freshwater bivalves and gastropods. Their eggs produce ciliated swimming larvae, and the life-cycle has one or two hosts.

Cercomeromorpha

This group of parasites attach themselves to the host by means of disks that bear crescent-shaped hooks. They are divided into Monogea and Cestoda.

Monogenea

There are about 1,100 species of monogeans. Most are external parasites that require particular host species, mainly fish but in some cases amphibians or aquatic reptiles. However, some are internal parasites. Adult monogeans have large attachment organs at the rear, haptors (haptein, means “catch”), which have suckers and hooks. To minimize water-resistance they have flattened bodies. In some species the pharynx secretes enzymes that digest the host’s skin, allowing the parasite to feed on blood and cellular debris. Others graze externally on mucus and flakes of the host’s skin. The name “Monogenea” is based on the fact that these parasites have only one non-larval generation.

Lifecycle of the eucestode Taenia. Inset 5 shows the scolex, which has 4 suckers round the sides and, in Taenia solium, a disk with hooks on the end. Inset 6 shows the tapeworm’s whole body, in which the scolex is the tiny round tip in the top left corner, and a mature proglottid has just detached.

Cestoda

These are often called tapeworms because of their flat, slender but very long bodies – the name “cestode” is derived from the Latin word cestus, which means “tape”. The adults of all 3,400 cestode species are internal parasites in the organs of vertebrates, including fish, cats, dogs and humans. The head is generally tiny compared to the size of the whole animal, and forms a scolex that attaches the parasite to the lining of the host’s gut. The commonest type of scolex has four suckers round the sides and a disk equipped with hooks at the end.

Cestodes have no mouths or guts, and the syncitial skin absorbs nutrients – mainly carbohydrates and amino acids – from the host, and also disguises it chemically to avoid attacks by the host’s immune system. Shortage of carbohydrates in the host’s diet stunts the growth of the parasites and kills some. Their metabolisms generally use simple but inefficient chemical processes, and the parasites compensate by consuming large amounts of food relative to their size.

In the majority of species, known as eucestodes (“true tapeworms”), the neck produces a chain of segments called proglottids by a process known as strobilation.

-Major organs and external structures along the length of a tapeworm

Hence the most mature proglottids are furthest from the scolex. Adults of Taenia saginata, which infests humans, can form proglottid chains over 20 metres (66 ft) long, although 4 metres (13 ft) is more typical. Each proglottid has both male and female reproductive organs. If the host’s gut contains two or more adults of the same cestode species, they generally fertilize each other; but proglottids of the same worm can fertilize each other and even fertilize themselves. When the eggs are fully developed, the proglottids separate and are excreted by the host. The eucestode life-cycle is less complex than that of digeneans, but varies depending on the species. For example:

Adults of Diphyllobothrium infest fish, and the juveniles use copepod crustaceans as intermediate hosts. Excreted proglottids release their eggs into the water, and the eggs hatch into ciliated swimming larvae. If a larva is swallowed by a copepod, it sheds the cilia and the skin becomes a syncitium and the larvae makes its way into the copepod’s hemocoel (internal cavity that is the main part of the circulatory system) and attached itself with three small hooks. If the copepod is eaten by a fish, the larva metamorphoses into a small, unsegmented tapeworm, drills through to the gut and becomes an adult.

Various species of Taenia infest the guts of humans, cats and dogs. The juveniles use herbivores – for example pigs, cattle and rabbits – as intermediate hosts. Excreted proglottids release eggs that stick to grass leaves and hatch after being swallowed by a herbivore. The larva makes its way to the herbivore’s muscles and metamorphoses into an oval worm about 10 millimetres (0.39 in) long, with a scolex that is kept inside. When the definitive host eats infested and raw or undercooked meat from an intermediate host, the worm’s scolex pops out and attaches itself to the gut, and the adult tapeworm develops.

A smaller group, known as Cestodaria, have no scolex, do not produce proglottids, and have body shapes like those of diageneans. Cestodarians parasitize fish and turtles.

Interaction with humans

Parasitism

Magnetic resonance image of a patient with neurocysticercosis demonstrating multiple cysticerci within the brain. 

Cestodes (tapeworms) and digeneans (flukes) cause important diseases in humans and their livestock, and monogeneans can cause serious losses of stocks in fish farms.[20] Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia or snail fever. It is a chronic illness that can damage internal organs. It can impair the growth and cognitive development of children, and increase the risk of bladder cancer in adults. The disease is caused by several flukes of the genus Schistosoma, which can bore through human skin. The people most at risk are those who use infected bodies of water for recreation or laundry.

Benefits

In Hawaii the planarian Endeavouria septemlineata has been used to control the imported giant African snail Achatina fulica, which was displacing native snails, and Platydemus manokwari.P. manokwari is given credit for severely reducing and in places exterminating A. fulica – achieving much greater success than most biological pest control programmes.