Food-borne zoonotic parasite.
Most common cause of human trichinellosis.
Shows little host specificity among mammals, completes its entire life cycle in a single host, does not have a free-living stage and lives as an intracellular parasite within a single striated muscle cell.
Statistics
Number of protein genes: 16392
Number of RNA genes: 24
Trichinella spiralis mtDNA: a nematode mitochondrial genome that encodes a putative ATP8 and normally structured tRNAS and has a gene arrangement relatable to those of coelomate metazoans.