Plasmodium

Plasmodium is a biological term that has several meanings:

• Plasmodia is a genus of parasitic protozoa ( Plasmodium ) from the hemosporidia order of the sporonic species (apicomplexes), some of which cause malaria in humans
• multinuclear vegetative body of plasmodial mucus
• any multinucleated cell formed not by fusion of several cells, but by dividing the nucleus of the original mononuclear cell.

A cell with many nuclei formed by the fusion of several cells is called syncytium .

The use of these two terms is often ambiguous; tradition influences it. However, in both plasmodial mucus and plasmodia of the genus Plasmodium, multinuclear stages are usually formed from the same initial mononuclear cell, that is, these are true plasmodia.