Difference Between Sporogony and Schizogony

The key difference between sporogony and schizogony is that sporogony is a spore-forming stage of the protozoan life cycle that produces sporozoites outside the host while schizogony is an asexual multiplicative stage of the protozoan life cycle which allows multiplication of the sporozoites inside the host.

Parasitic infections like malaria play an important role in the field of medicine. As these parasitic infections bring about fatal effects, it is important to study the life cycle of the parasite to describe the disease aetiology. Furthermore, sporogony and schizogony are two distinct phases of parasitic life cycles that play an important role in survival. Sporogony is a period of maturation outside the host while schizogony is a period of asexual replication within the host.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Sporogony 
3. What is Schizogony
4. Similarities Between Sporogony and Schizogony
5. Side by Side Comparison – Sporogony vs Schizogony in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What is Sporogony?

Sporogony is a period of asexual maturation outside the host. Sporogony results in the development of the infecting form of the parasite. It takes place within the vector, and the vector is then capable of inducing the disease to the human host. In most cases, the parasite forms within the mosquito that transfers the disease to the human upon a mosquito bite.

Furthermore, upon entry of the parasite into its vector, the gametocytes of the parasite adjust to the vector host conditions. Thus, this adjustment of the gametocytes initiates sporogony. Thus, the male and female gametes fuse and give rise to many infectious forms of the parasite. Upon sporogony, sporozoites are released into the body cavity of the vector organism. The sporogonic cycle lasts for about 8 – 15 days.

Upon the injection of the vector contents into the host, the sporozoites formed due to sporogony enter into the human and the infection manifests within the human. These phenomena are well seen in the aetiology of the Malaria infection and its causative organism Plasmodium.

What is Schizogony?

Schizogony also refers to the asexual reproduction method, where the sporozoites inoculated by the mosquito multiply within the human body. Therefore, schizogony is a period of asexual replication within the host.

When the sporozoites adjust to the host system and start acquiring nutrients into them, the host eventually loses its ability to fight against the host. Thus, sporozoites undergo rapid multiplication. Furthermore, there are varying developmental stages of Schizogony, depending on the host and the parasite.

What are the Similarities Between Sporogony and Schizogony?

• Sporogony and Schizogony are asexual reproduction methods.
• Both take place during parasitic infection.
• They depend on the active role of a vector.
• Moreover, both bring about harmful outcomes to the human host.

What is the Difference Between Sporogony and Schizogony?

The key difference between sporogony and schizogony is that the sporogony synthesizes the sporozoites by taking over the vector mechanism, while the schizogony is the multiplication of the sporozoites inside the host.

Further, the following infographic presents more information regarding the difference between Sporogony and Schizogony:

Summary – Sporogony vs Schizogony

Sporogony and schizogony also play an important role in the life cycle of a parasite such as Plasmodium. Therefore, studying these two processes are very important for the explanation of the disease aetiology. Basically, sporogony refers to the production of sporozoites of parasites in vectors, while schizogony is the process of multiplication and maturation of sporozoites in the host cells. These processes are very specific to the parasite, the vector and the host.

Reference:

1. “Life Cycle.” Malaria Site, 9 Jan. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Malaria Sporozoites (16657642929)” By NIAID – Malaria Sporozoites (CC BY 2.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2. “micrograph, mature, plasmodium vivax, schizont, merozoites, mag, 1125x” (CC0) via Pixino