Présentation du P
rElizabeth U. C
ANNING, co-récipiendaire 2004
par le D
rRobert K
ILLICK-K
ENDRICK Honorable members of the Brumpt family, Mr President,Mr Chairman,
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen
I
am delighted to have this opportunity to say a few words about one of the eminent recipients of the International Émile-Brumpt Medal to be honoured today: Professor Eli- zabeth CANNING. I have one problem. It is difficult for me to avoid saying “Liz” – for that is how Professor CANNINGis known by her many friends and colleagues.
I have a vague memory of Liz in the early 1950s when she was a PhD student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She seemed to spend a surprising amount of time in the corridors on her hands and knees catching escaped locusts.
But I didn’t know her well until 1969, when I moved from the London School to Imperial College where Liz began her professional career firstly as a student and then as a member of staff in the department known at that time as the Department of zoology and applied entomology. After several metamor- phoses, it has now emerged as the Department of biological sciences. For nearly thirty years, Liz steadily climbed the academic ladder of Imperial College until, in 1981, she became a Full Professor. Now, in so-called retirement, Liz is a very active Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow in the same department where she began.
Liz’s international reputation is based on her elegant research work. But, before considering that, I want to say something about Liz as a teacher. Research work is there for all time for anyone to read. Once published, it stays as printed words on paper. But teaching is more dynamic. It is like sowing seeds:
some fall by the wayside and are lost: some fall on stony ground: and some fall among the thorns: but some fall on good ground and grow into beautiful plants. As a teacher, Liz has had more than her share of beautiful plants. It is, however, true to say Liz is not a natural actor who finds it easy to deliver a lecture without notes. Her lectures are always carefully prepared and presented with extraordinary clarity.
Above all, they are updated continually to include the latest findings. When Liz began teaching parasitic protozoology, the ultrastructure of parasites was unknown, knowledge of the immune responses to infection was rudimentary and, of course, molecular biology was not even born. With each major advance, Liz has enlarged her knowledge to accommo-
date new findings and communicate them to her students and incorporate them into her researches. It is as if she herself has remained a student all her professional life.
While I was attempting to prepare a brief review of Liz’s research work, I sensed the influence of Liz’s mentor and friend P.C.C. GARNHAM. He believed it was not possible to understand parasitism and be a true parasitologist if you are interested in only the comparatively few parasites that infect man and his domestic animals. Parasitism is a common way of life: a list of parasitic animals would be longer than a list of free-living creatures. The GARNHAM philosophy is that all parasites are interesting and he could be as excited by a new malaria parasite of a lizard as by the discovery of the life cycle of Toxoplasma.
Liz has published nearly 200 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals on a wide range of parasitic protozoa. The majority of the papers are multi-authored: Liz has always been gene- rous in including students, assistants and colleagues as co- authors and her name often appears far down the list when it should have been the first. I am not going to list all the authors but I know Liz would be unhappy if her work were presented as though she had done it all by herself.
Among the parasitic protozoa studied by Liz are gregarines, coccidia, piroplasms, malaria parasites, amoebae, trypano- somatids, myxozoans and microsporidia. But it is the work
P rix international Émile-Brumpt 2004.
C OMPTES RENDUS DE SÉANCES
Photo 1.
An electron micrograph of a section of a microsporidian spore showing the polar tube (filament), two nuclei and the membranes of the polaroplast.
Micrographe électronique d’une coupe de spore microsporidienne montrant le tube polaire (filament), deux noyaux et
les membranes du polaroplaste.
Prix international Émile-Brumpt 2004.
on the last of these – the microsporidia (figure 1) – that run through her list of publications like shining gold threads through tapestry.
Liz’s first encounter with a microsporidian was with a species parasitising locusts which was the subject of her PhD degree.
Thereafter this difficult group of parasites features regularly in her researches and she is without doubt the internatio- nal queen of the microsporidia. At the next meeting of the Society for invertebrate pathology in Alaska in August 2005, the Founder’s Lecture will be entitled “Expanding frontiers for Microsporidia: a tribute to Professor Elizabeth U. CAN-
NING”.
Alone or with colleagues Liz has studied microsporidia of locusts, mosquitoes, phlebotomine sandflies, blackflies, cad- disflies, lepidopterans, beetles, trematodes, Bryozoa, fish, toads, reptiles, rodents, rabbits and man. Her name is attached to 1 new Family, 8 new genera and 26 new species. Many para- sitologists are under the impression that the microsporidia are all parasites of invertebrates. Most are, but with Dr LOM
of the Czech Republic, Liz published The Microsporidia of Vertebrates in 1986 in which she points out that microsporidia are also parasites of all five classes of animals with backbo- nes. Occasional infections in human patients attracted little attention until 1985 when her co-recipient of the Brumpt Prize, Dr Isabelle DESPORTES, and her colleagues described and named a microsporidian from a patient with HIV infec- tion. From further work, it has now become clear that micros- poridia, perhaps from fish, crustaceans, mosquitoes or other natural hosts, can be opportunistic and dangerous infections in individuals with an impaired immune system. Liz’s con- tribution to this was in taxonomy and ways and means of diagnosing infection.
When the time came for Liz to retire from Imperial College a few years ago, a new and absorbing project came to her attention that was so interesting she just carried on working.
DrOKAMARA of the University of Reading in the south of England consulted Liz about some strange sacs in the body of a Bryozoan, aquatic colonial animals – the so-called “moss animals”. From the ultrastructure, it was apparent that the sacs were developmental stages of a Myxozoan, spore-for- ming parasites that were once wrongly classified near the Microsporidia. To accommodate this and a related parasite, Liz and colleagues proposed a new Class and Order. This work solved the mystery of an economically important disease in farmed salmon caused by a Myxozoan of the kidneys and provisionally known as PKX organism: the origin of infection was completely unknown. Now it was revealed that the pri- mary host of the salmon parasite is a fresh-water Bryozoan.
The chance request by Dr OKAMARA resulted in eight major publications by Liz and colleagues and we expect there will be more. Very recent studies of the rDNA sequences of the Myxozoa by Liz and others have led to contradictory ideas on the evolution of this widespread group of enigmatic para- sites with some, including Liz, believing they have affinities with nematodes (figure 2) whereas others consider them to be parasitic Cnidaria, animals that include corals, sea anemones and even the huge Siphonophore Physalia, known in English as the Portuguese man-of-war. It seems unlikely Liz will be content to leave this difference of opinion unresolved.
When asked to say which of her many studies have given her the most satisfaction, Liz chose this discovery of a new Class of Myxozoa, early joint work with Professor Robert SINDEN
on the ultrastructure of malaria parasites, the in vitro culture of piroplasms, and the in vitro culture of a human microspo- ridian, Trachipleistophora hominis.
Concern has often been expressed that women scientists are undervalued in British Universities. Although their contri- butions in both teaching and research are recognised as equal to those of their male colleagues, far too few reach the top of their profession. This sad situation is not unique to the United Kingdom where the monastic origin of universities is still ingrained in some aspects of academic life. One of the greatest British scientists of the 20th century gave a recipe for women’s success in science. She was the crystallographer Dame Kathleen LONSDALE, one of the first two women to be elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society. She wrote (1): “For a woman, and especially a married woman with children, to become a first class scientist she must first of all choose, or have chosen, the right husband. He must recognise her problems and be willing to share them. If he is really domesticated, so much the better. Then she must be a good organiser and be pretty ruthless in keeping to her schedule, no matter if the heavens fall. She must be able to do with very little sleep, because her working week will be at least twice as long as the average trade unionist’s. She must go against all her early training and not care if she is regarded as a little peculiar. She must be willing to accept additional responsibility, even if she feels that she has more than enough. But above all, she must learn to concentrate in any available moment and not require ideal conditions in which to do so.”
This could have been written with Liz in mind. Her success in reaching the pinnacle of our profession has been due, at least partly, to her incredible industry and the great care she takes in all she does. But that’s not all. To many, Liz seems to be an archetypal Englishwoman. But she has none of the insularity of which the English are often accused. She has travelled widely both to collect material in the field and to work with an astounding number of collaborators all over the world who, because she commands their respect and affec- tion, remain her friends for life.
Photo 2.
An electron micrograph of a transverse section of the worm-like stage of a malacosporean myxozoan (Buddenbrockia plumatellae). It shows inner and outer layers of cells and 4 muscle blocks, the last being the clue that myxo- zoans are related to nematodes: the typical spores will be formed within the
central cavity.
Micrographe électronique d’une coupe transversale de la phase vermiforme d’un malacosporean myxozoan (Buddenbrockia plumatellae). On peut voir les couches internes et externes des cellules et 4 blocs de muscle, ces derniers indiquant que les myxozoans sont liés aux nématodes: les spores
typiques se formeront à l’intérieur de la cavité centrale
On behalf of these many friends and colleagues, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Professor CANNING
and express our delight that the jury of the Prix Brumpt chose to honour her as co-recipient of the Émile-Brumpt Interna- tional Medal and Prize for the year 2004.
Références bibliographiques
1. HODGKIN D – Kathleen Lonsdale. Biographical Memoirs of Fel- lows of the Royal Society, 1975, 21, 447-484.
Response by Elizabeth U. C
ANNING Mr President, Chairman, Ladies and GentlemenI
t is with a true sense of pride that I have come today to accept the Émile-Brumpt Prize jointly with Isabelle DES-PORTES. I first became aware of Professor BRUMPT through his Précis de parasitologie, then through his wide ranging original research in parasitology that clearly set him apart from many contemporaries as a giant in his field. I am humbled by the list of previous recipients, many of whom are known to me personally and whom I have always revered as outstanding in their fields. It is particularly pleasurable to have been awar- ded this prize jointly with Isabelle DESPORTES. Our paths have met many times through a passion for microsporidia and our research careers have followed almost parallel lines, starting with microsporidia of insects. I have worked with the microsporidium Nosema bombycis which was discovered by Louis PASTEUR causing the disease in silkworms that contri- buted to the decline of the silk industry in Europe. Isabelle and I progressed to microsporidia in vertebrates and even- tually to man when the AIDS epidemic revealed that human infections are quite common but normally at undetectable levels. Both of us have described new genera of microsporidia from AIDS patients. Isabelle’s was Enterocytozoon bieneusi the commonest of the species found in man, causing a very debilitating diarrhoea. It has proved intractable to culture and is not susceptible to drugs that are effective against other microsporidia. Mine, Trachipleistophora hominis, has only been diagnosed three times but causes a potentially fatal des- truction of skeletal muscle. It is easily cultured and is highly susceptible to anti-microsporidial drugs.
I never had the opportunity to meet Emile BRUMPT perso- nally, as he died in the very year that I graduated. In rea- ding about him I found that he had a dogged determination to succeed against all odds when he had set his mind to a research problem. I saw the same determination in my super-
visor Professor Cyril GARNHAM, another of the Brumpt prize recipients. GARNHAM had worked with BRUMPT in 1931 and clearly some of BRUMPT’s tenacity had rubbed off on to the younger man at this time. In my acceptance of the award, I shall reflect on several of my associations with Parasitology in France.
The first real contact was with Irène LANDAU at the second International congress of protozoology, in London in 1965. A little later she sent me some sections of the intestine of the wall lizard, Lacerta muralis infected with microsporidia and we published a short note on it in 1971. Then, she collected and arranged for some more lizards to be sent to me from France and with live material I was able to determine its life cycle and ultrastructure and published the description as Encephalito- zoon lacertae in the Festschrift to Professor GARNHAM on his eightieth birthday. On a visit to our lab at Silwood Park, Irène once brought with her a Royal Python, which passed through Customs undetected in a cotton bag in her luggage. I doubt under present day scrutiny that she would have succeeded in bringing an illegal immigrant python into England! However, its erythrocytes proved very useful as standard DNA when we were comparing DNA levels at different stages of para- site life cycles. The python was greatly admired and we had it for a long time but one day it disappeared from its glass tank and was lost. After several months it reappeared when a lecturer turned the roller blackboard rather quickly in the lecture theatre and the python slithered over the floor to the anxiety of both the lecturer and the students. It was recaptu- red but disappeared again into a private collection, we believe, because it was such an attractive specimen.
When Professor GARNHAM retired from the London School of hygiene and tropical medicine, he came to Silwood Park, where, with Bob KILLICK-KENDRICK and Bill BRAY, we for- med the backbone of a protozoology group that had regu- lar contact with the complementary group at the Museum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris. Irène’s group had redes- cribed Hepatocystis malayensis and described a new species Hepatocystis brayi from Malaysian squirrels, Callosciurus spp.
They then involved me in studies of the ultrastructure of the merocysts and of gametogenesis and of the development of H. brayi in Culicoides (1976).
In the 1980s Irène and P. MILLET from the Paris Museum and R.S. BRAY and myself from Imperial College visited Zhongs- han University, Guangzhou, China, to help J.-B. JIANG and other scientists emerging from the Cultural Revolution to re-establish a research group on malaria. Apart from enjoying our role in the University and carrying out successful experi- ments, we had the opportunity of visiting Beijing and Si’an.
Subsequently, papers were published jointly with the Chinese on the ultrastructure of exoerythrocytic schizonts of Plasmo- dium cynomolgi bastianellii and on early schizont develop- ment in vitro in hepatocytes of Rhesus monkeys (1987).
Passing on to another link, I first met Professor Chris- tian VIVARES in Montpellier and have enjoyed research collaboration with him at the University Blaise-Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand. Using our cultures of a mouse isolate of Encephalitozoon cuniculi, the group with Corinne BIDERRE as lead worker, obtained evidence for a nuclear genome of 2.9Mb, the smallest known for any eukaryote (1995). This work was expanded to embrace two isolates of Encephali- tozoon intestinalis and two of Encephalitozoon hellem from AIDS patients. The E. intestinalis isolates were similar with genome size of 2.34 Mb. One E. hellem isolate, with genome size of 2.9Mb, that we had cultured from the nasal mucosa of an AIDS patient, showed a greater number of chromosome
Prix international Émile-Brumpt 2004.
bands than the other but this may have been due to co-migra- tion in the second isolate of non-homologous bands (1997).
It was a great pleasure for me to have known and worked with this group because they, not me, went on to determine the entire genome sequence of E. cuniculi. For me there were crowning moments, when I received an honorary docto- rate from the Université Blaise-Pascal and when Professor VIVARES came to England to present an appreciation of my work on Microsporidia at a special session of the British section of the Society of protozoology (BSSP) organised in my honour.
Two other research collaborations deserve mention. At a time round 1980, that I can’t pinpoint accurately, Professor Claude COMBES very kindly arranged for four of us from my group to occupy a log cabin near Banyuls, while we searched for water snails with trematode larvae hyperinfected with microsporidia. We visited lowland and mountain water sites but regrettably never found any hyperinfections. As I had a student, Keith WALLBANKS, working on lizard trypanosoma- tids, we used the opportunity to look for geckoes, Tarentola mauritanica, in Banyuls. We were frustrated with this project also because we disturbed a wasp nest while dismantling a wall of hollow bricks, where we were assured the geckoes were living. Thereafter the wall was unapproachable. WALL-
BANKS obtained other supplies of geckoes from this area and demonstrated that the so-called Leishmania tarentolae was actually a trypanosome, Trypanosoma platydactli. Claude and a colleague visited our lab to see the system that we had for maintaining schistosomes and liver flukes that we used in experiments with microsporidia.
The last research connection was with Bob KILLICK KEN-
DRICK’s group in 1987. They had established laboratory in L’Aumede in the Cévennes every summer. I visited in order to examine Phlebotomus ariasi for microsporidia. We found several species, one of which was transmitted to larvae and later named Flabelliforma montana, reflecting the moun- tainous location of the host (1991). We obtained a rDNA sequence for this species and identified its position in micros- poridian phylogeny (2000). We collected it again when Bob and Mireille went to live in Sumène and rather disturbin- gly found two of the sandflies collected from a garden of a residential area infected with promastigotes of Leishmania.
Professor RIOUX attempted to culture from these flies but our dissections were not sterile and the cultures were con- taminated.
My other main contact with French scientists has been at the University of Montpellier. I have been on the jury for theses three times, for Jean MAURAND, Claude LOUBES and most recently for Cécile POMPORT-CASTILLON when Isabelle was a co-member of the jury. One thing I learned was that theses provided considerable opportunity for theatrical performan- ces by eminent professors during theses presentations.
I have attended several international and European on pro- tozoology and parasitology congresses in French cities and meetings of the GPLF, always enjoying the most generous hospitality that is typical of France. I recall a memorable dinner during the European colloquium of parasitology in Rennes in 1971. Bill BRAY, always anxious to enjoy French cuisine at its best, took a small mixed group to a Michelin- starred restaurant in nearby Rohan. After dining well and in good humour, we discussed whether men or women made the best chefs. Unable to resolve the dispute, the restaurant’s chef was summoned and the problem explained. Entering into the spirit of the occasion and with a twinkle in his eye, he unhesitatingly pronounced that women were the best and
quoted several famous ones. How gallant and how well appre- ciated by all present!
I have not yet mentioned my long-standing and continuing friendship with the staff of the Museum and elsewhere in Paris. To mention but a few – Odile BAIN, Marie Claude DESSET, Nicole LÉGER and, of course, Irène and CHABAUD. For many years CHABAUD opened his house La Buno in Nor- mandy for a week-end party based on mushroom collecting.
Sadly, the house is no longer available but we have still met and dined at Bill BRAY’s invitation in Normandy. Last year Odile brought chanterelles from a Paris market to ensure the tradition was continued.
I should like to conclude by thanking the Société de patho- logie exotique for awarding me the Émile-Brumpt prize jointly with Isabelle, and Bob KILLICK-KENDRICK for his complimentary summary of my career in Protozoology. I shall treasure the memory of this occasion and hold the prize in the greatest esteem.
Présentation du D
rIsabelle D
ESPORTES- L
IVAGE, co-récipiendaire 2004
par le P
rChristian V
IVARÈSL
a carrière d’Isabelle DESPORTES-LIVAGE commence au début des années 60 et sa palette artistique de chercheuse, centrée longtemps sur l’analyse cellulaire ultrastructurale s’étendra jusqu’ à la visualisation des réactions immunologi- ques. La première et plus importante contribution concerne les parasites d’invertébrés ; elle est effectuée au sein du labo- ratoire d’évolution de l’Université de Paris sous la direction de Pierre-Paul GRASSÉ, maître illustre, en collaboration de Jean THÉODORIDÈS, en tant qu’étudiante puis chercheuse au CNRS. Le travail sur les Grégarines, considérées comme des Apicomplexes primitifs, est majeur (38 genres étudiés dont 9 nouveaux et 56 espèces) ; il en est ainsi de la description du système d’ancrage à la cellule-hôte, et de celle des plis épicytaires assurant le mouvement de reptation. L’analyse de la gamétogenèse est réalisée d’une façon magistrale. Isa- belle DESPORTES-LIVAGE décrit, pour la première fois chez les Apicomplexes, les complexes synaptonémaux au cours de la méiose.La palette s’élargit avec l’étude de différents groupes de para- sites. Tout d’abord, une iconographie interprétée d’une rare beauté concerne les microsporidies d’insectes ou hyperparasite d’Echiurien. Des travaux sur les Haplosporidies, les Paramyxi- dies et les Myxosporidies lui permettent de passer avec brio de l’étude de la microbiologie des unicellulaires à celle des pluricellulaires. Le travail sur les Paramyxea est fondamental par l’étude détaillée de représentants de ce groupe. Ces para- sites sont caractérisés par la production de spores composées de plusieurs cellules emboîtées à la façon des poupées russes ; cette ébauche d’organisation pluricellulaire est achevée chez les Myxosporidies, parasites de Vertébrés inférieurs. Sur la palette d’Isabelle DESPORTES-LIVAGE, une marque singulière date de 1985, car c’est cette année-là qu’elle décrit la première microsporidie opportuniste du sida : un nouveau chapitre de la microsporidiologie est né. Ceci l’oriente définitivement vers la recherche finalisée, car elle entre dans l’équipe de Daniel ZAGURY en contribuant d’une façon significative à l’analyse par immunodétection de l’expression virale dans les lympho- cytes CD4+ infectés par le VIH. Ceci donna lieu à plusieurs publications dans des revues généralistes de très haut niveau.
La période la plus récente débute en 1990 dans l’unité INSERM 313 (devenue 511) dirigée successivement par Marc GENTILINI
puis Dominique MAZIER. Elle est consacrée à la mise au point de techniques de détection et à l’identification des espèces microsporidiennes humaines. La commercialisation d’un kit à partir d’anticorps monoclonaux en est l’aboutissement : il favorise les études épidémiologiques comme celle réalisée au Mali. Enfin, la compréhension des réponses immunes et l’as- pect thérapeutique font partie de ses préoccupations.
Au final, Isabelle DESPORTES-LIVAGE, au fil de ses 152 publi- cations, incluant 10 chapitres d’ouvrages, a démontré com- ment une observatrice de type naturaliste pouvait enrichir, avec succès, la connaissance de différents groupes de parasites.
L’écriture de scénarios à partir d’observations en microscopie électronique à transmission dont elle fut une des pionnières lui a permis, par la suite, d’aborder d’autres domaines. Ceci est l’excellente illustration qu’il n’y a pas d’un côté une recher- che fondamentale et, de l’autre, une recherche finalisée voire appliquée, mais qu’il n’y a que de la bonne Science à condition que le chercheur ait du talent et de la pugnacité. D’aucuns pourraient penser qu’Isabelle DESPORTES-LIVAGE repose sa palette. Il n’en est rien car la présidente du Groupement des protistologues de langue française (GPLF), tout en préparant le prochain congrès à Dakar, rédige un gros ouvrage sur les Grégarines !
Il est donc naturel de te dire : Chère Isabelle, merci pour tes contributions majeures en microbiologie des eucaryotes.
Réponse du D
rIsabelle D
ESPORTES.
J
e tiens tout d’abord à exprimer ma profonde gratitude au jury du Prix international Émile-Brumpt. La remise de cette distinction est pour moi particulièrement émouvante.Beaucoup de lauréats précédents soulignèrent l’influence d’Émile BRUMPT sur leur orientation scientifique. En ce qui me concerne, je peux dire qu’il a totalement déterminé le cours de mon existence, puisque mon père, Camille DES-
PORTES, fut l’un de ses disciples les plus enthousiastes. J’ai de plus l’insigne honneur de partager cette distinction avec Elizabeth CANNING. En une telle circonstance, c’est une joie de retrouver Liz que je rencontrais régulièrement aux con- grès de protozoologie et aux colloques internationaux sur les infections opportunistes.
L’attribution du prix Brumpt me donne l’opportunité d’évo- quer le milieu extraordinairement actif de la parasitologie qui fut le cadre de mon enfance. Dès l’âge de quatre ans, j’accom- pagnais mon père le dimanche au laboratoire des Cordeliers et je garde le souvenir très vif des superbes préparations qu’il me faisait admirer au microscope. Rétrospectivement, je peux préciser qu’il s’agissait de filaires et de trématodes. C’est avec tendresse que je repense à « Bouli Boula » le bébé léopard que mon père rapporta d’une mission en Inde en 1945 et qui partagea avec nous des vacances familiales.
Après le décès de Camille DESPORTES, en décembre 1947, au terme d’une mission en Afrique, la sollicitude d’Émile BRUMPT
et de tout le laboratoire de parasitologie se manifesta en main- tes circonstances et notamment à la station expérimentale de Richelieu, en Indre-et-Loire, où ma mère assura chaque été, jusqu’en 1965, l’accueil des chercheurs et de leur famille.
La station était implantée dans le vaste domaine légué à la Sorbonne par le Duc de Richelieu, arrière petit neveu du Car- dinal. Les enfants y participaient avec bonheur aux récoltes de mollusques, crustacés et divers insectes dans les mares et rivières environnantes. L’expérience alors acquise fut mise à profit lors de mes recherches ultérieures sur les parasites de la faune aquatique.
En 1951, j’avais 12 ans, je reçus d’Émile BRUMPT son précis de parasitologie dédicacé. Cette dédicace témoigne d’une colla- boration qui s’exerçait non seulement dans la collecte d’hôtes aquatiques mais aussi dans le domaine de la botanique. L’agro- nomie fut en effet un domaine d’expertise d’Émile BRUMPT
qui effectua notamment des essais de culture de différentes souches de soja à Richelieu. Il tenait tout particulièrement à être présent à la récolte annuelle de l’oeillette qui mobilisait tout le laboratoire. Ne pouvant se déplacer en raison de sa paralysie, il se faisait conduire dans son fauteuil roulant sur le lieu de la récolte. Émile BRUMPT faisait également appel à son entourage pour s’informer de l’évolution de l’environnement végétal. Ses descriptions de plantes étaient si précises que je pus lui rapporter certains des échantillons demandés, ce qui était une réelle source de satisfaction pour lui comme pour moi, bien évidemment.
La station de Richelieu fut un centre de recherche extrême- ment actif, animé et fréquenté par de nombreux et prestigieux parasitologistes de diverses nationalités. Certains y débutèrent
Photo 1.
Camille DESPORTES au laboratoire de parasitologie des Cordeliers en 1946.
Camille Desportes at Cordeliers laboratory of parasitology in 1946.
Prix international Émile-Brumpt 2004.
leur carrière. D’autres furent lauréats du prix Brumpt comme Robert-Philippe DOLLFUS, Ettore BIOCCA, directeur de l’Institut de parasitologie de Rome, et, plus récemment, Alain G. CHABAUD. Cet envi- ronnement exceptionnel m’a tout naturellement incité à pour- suivre des études de biologie.
C’est au Laboratoire d’évolu- tion des êtres organisés, dirigé par le grand zoologiste Pierre- Paul GRASSÉ, que j’ai poursuivi pendant plus de 20 ans des recherches sur les grégarines, apicomplexes à développement extracellulaire. Mon directeur de recherche fut Jean THEODO-
RIDÈS, un ancien de Richelieu, grand spécialiste de ces parasites d’invertébrés. P.-P. GRASSÉ avait implanté au Laboratoire d’évo- lution le service de microsco-
pie électronique du CNRS. Cette méthodologie hautement performante me permit de pousser les investigations sur le développement des grégarines. J’ai pu ainsi préciser certaines particularités communes aux représentants du phylum des Apicomplexes comme l’organisation cytologique du stade infestant (sporozoïte) et son évolution particulière chez les espèces à développement extracellulaire. De même, les pre- mières images de la méiose des Apicomplexes furent obtenues à partir d’une grégarine intestinale de Scolopendre.
Ces investigations s’étendirent aux Haplosporidies parasites de mollusques, avec la collaboration de Nawal NASHED (Univer- sité Ain Shams au Caire), aux Myxosporidies de poissons, aux Microsporidies et aux Paramyxidies. C’est avec un spécialiste de la sexualité des crustacés (Thomas GINZBURGER-VOGEL, Université Paris-VI) que débutèrent les recherches sur les
Paramyxidies. Il fut montré que la féminisation d’une popula- tion d’amphipodes était induite par un nouveau parasite (Para- marteilia orchestiae) proche de l’agent de la marteiliose, qui décima les huîtres plates dans les années 1970. La microscopie électronique permit le regrou- pement des espèces parasites d’huîtres et d’amphipodes avec Paramyxa paradoxa trouvée chez des annélides polychètes par André CHATTON (1942).
Ces études auxquelles colla- bora le parasitologiste Jiri LOM
(République Tchèque) conduisi- rent à la redéfinition du phylum Paramyxea, caractérisé par la production de spores à cellules emboîtées comme les poupées russes (DESPORTES & PERKINS, 1989).
En ce qui concerne les micros- poridies, plusieurs espèces furent découvertes ou redécrites dans des larves d’éphémères et même chez des grégarines parasites de vers marins. Les données ultrastructurales obte- nues en 1976 et 1979 sur les divisions nucléaires de Stempellia mutabilis et d’Amphiamblys laubieri (= Desportesia laubieri (ISSI & VORONIN, 1986) suggéraient déjà le rapprochement actuellement confirmé des microsporidies et des champignons.
Des circonstances alors imprévisibles firent que l’étude des microsporidies d’invertébrés me conduisit à la parasitologie humaine. En 1983, je fus contactée par l’anatomo-pathologiste Yves LE CHARPENTIER. Ce dernier cherchait à identifier un parasite énigmatique, localisé dans la muqueuse intestinale d’un patient atteint du sida et souffrant d’une pathologie digestive sévère. L’examen de biopsies duodénales au micros- cope électronique révélait la présence d’éléments cellulaires
Photo 3.
Pierre-Paul GRASSÉ, photographié par A.R. Devez, lors d’une mission au Brésil en 1973. Il était alors Président de l’Académie des Sciences.
Pierre-Paul GRASSE during a mission in Brazil in 1973.
He was then President of the Academy of Sciences.
Photo 4.
Jean THÉODORIDÈS disséquant des crustacés à bord du navire océanographique de la station marine de Villefranche-sur-mer, en 1974.
Jean THEODORIDES dissecting crustaceans on board of the oceanographic ship in the oceanic station of Villefranche-sur-mer in 1974.
Photo 2.
Émile BRUMPT faisant jouer Mirka sur la grande pelouse du domaine de Richelieu en 1940.
Émile BRUMPT playing with Mirka on the large lawn of the domaine de Richelieu in 1940.
plurinucléés dans les entérocy- tes. D’autres particularités per- mirent d’établir qu’il s’agissait des stades du développement d’une microsporidie encore inconnue que l’on nomma Ente- rocytozoon bieneusi en raison de sa localisation. L’espèce, décrite en 1985 dans un article publié dans le Journal of Protozoology, fut reconnue comme l’une des premières causes de diarrhées chez les patients immunodépri- més par le VIH aux États-Unis comme en Europe.
La détection et le traitement de cette parasitose opportuniste mobilisèrent de nombreuses équipes dans le monde. Un tel programme fut développé en France, et notamment à la Pitié-Salpêtrière, où je rejoignis en 1990 l’unité INSERM, diri- gée par Marc GENTILINI. Une
équipe « microsporidioses opportunistes » fut créée avec Annick DATRY. En une douzaine d’années, nos recherches dans lesquelles s’investirent totalement des étudiants en thèse, post-doctorants, techniciens ou stagiaires de DEA motivés, se concrétisèrent par la mise au point de méthodes et d’outils diagnostiques performants comme la PCR et des anticorps monoclonaux dont l’efficacité fut attestée lors d’enquêtes épidémiologiques réalisées avec la collaboration de l’hôpital du Point-G de Bamako. Nous avons également participé aux essais thérapeutiques coordonnés par Jean-Michel MOLINA
(hôpital Saint-Louis) et financés par l’ANRS. Ces études mul- ticentriques permirent de proposer un traitement différentiel de la microsporidiose intestinale selon que l’agent en cause est Enterocytozoon bieneusi ou Encephalitozoon intestinalis, autre espèce décrite en 1992 aux États-Unis.
La restauration du système immunitaire par les thérapies antirétrovirales a heureusement réduit de façon spectaculaire le nombre de cas rapportés en Europe comme aux États-Unis.
Actuellement, la microspori- diose intestinale affecte surtout les sujets immunodéficients des pays en développement. Des cas sont signalés chez les sujets transplantés, immunodéprimés par les traitements anti-rejets.
Les méthodes de détection dis- ponibles permettent d’étendre les investigations à l’environne- ment. Diverses sources de con- tamination ont été identifiées parmi les mammifères d’éle- vage, domestiques ou sauvages et plus récemment chez des oiseaux comme les poulets et les pigeons.
Cet exposé est trop succinct pour évoquer l’ambiance stimulante des missions sur le ter- rain et des campagnes en mer, dans l’Atlantique Nord (1976) et aux îles australes Crozet et Kerguelen (1982). Depuis ma retraite en 2004, j’ai le grand privilège de garder le contact avec le monde de la parasitologie au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle grâce au Groupement des protistologues de langue française, dont je suis l’actuelle Présidente.
Au terme de cette allocution, je tiens à rendre hommage à deux personnalités disparues à la fin de l’année 1999 : Jean THEO-
DORIDES, avec qui je m’engageais en 1962 dans l’étude des parasites d’invertébrés, et Yves LE CHARPENTIER, professeur d’anatomie-pathologie à la Pitié-Salpêtrière, qui m’a ouvert le champ de la parasitologie humaine.
Photo 5.
Yves LE CHARPENTIER au colloque sur les microsporidioses intestinales et l’infection par le VIH (Paris, 1992).
Yves LE CHARPENTIER during the symposium on intestinal microsporidiasis and infection by HIV (Paris, 1992).
