TABLE 1.

Main clinical, parasitic, life cycle, and morphological similarities and differences between Amphibiocystidium ranae, Dermocystidium salmonis, and Rhinosporidium seeberi^a

Parameter	A. ranae	D. salmonis	R. seeberi
Clinical features	Elevated hemispherical skin lesions	Round lesion of the gills	Cutaneous and/or mucocutaneous polyps
Parasitic stage similarities	Oval to spherical cysts with endospores (sporangia)	Oval or spherical cysts (sporangia) with endospores	Spherical sporangia with endospores and different size immature forms
Parasitic stage differences	Usually cysts located under the skin	Usually cysts in the gills of the infected hosts	Usually sporangia (cysts) within infected polyps
Host	Frog pathogen (other amphibians?)	Fish pathogen	Mammalian and bird pathogen
Development of uniflagellated zoospores	Absent	Present in all known Dermocystidium spp.	Absent
Cyst cell wall (sporangia)	Spherical thin outer and thick inner layers (TEM and LM)	Spherical thin outer layer (only LM)	Spherical thin outer and thick inner layers (TEM and LM)
Endospores	Encapsulate endospores with solitary vesicles	Endospores with solitary vesicles (only LM)	Encapsulate endospores with multiple vesicles

^aLM, light microscopy; TEM, transmission electron microscopy.