flattening. the trophozoites also contained tubular mitochondrial cristae, and a large contractile vacuole. all of these characteristics are distinguishing features of the genus sappinia. the medical team sent the sample to the cdc, who confirmed that these characteristics do not coincide with any previously known pathogenic amoebae in humans. the patient was treated with several antimicrobials and recovered completely. after 14 months, the cdc diagnosed the causative agent as s. diploidea based on morphological characteristics. in 2009, qvarnstrom et al. reevaluated this conclusion, as the morphological characteristics present in the scans cannot distinguish between s. diploidea and s. pedata. qvarnstrom et al. (2009) first used pcr primers and taqman probes to detect if the trophozoites did in fact belong to sappinia, and to rule out other amoeba genera. they found that the dna was that of sappinia, and no other amoebae dna was found. they then had to use species-specific pcr primers for s. diploidea and s. pedata to determine the causative agent. qvarnstrom et al. (2009) found that the sample tested negative for s. diploidea but had s. pedata-specific priming sites, which then allowed them to conlucde that the causative agent of gae in this case was s. pedata. list of species sappinia pedata sappinia diploidea sappinia platani