What's new for 'Trypanosomatids' in PubMed

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Sent on Friday, 2010 Oct 22
Search kinetoplastids OR kinetoplastid OR Kinetoplastida OR "trypanosoma brucei" OR leishmania OR brucei OR leishmaniasis OR "African trypanosomiasis"
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PubMed Results

Items 1 - 5 of 5

1.	Braz J Infect Dis. 2010 Aug;14(4):342-5. Epidemiological profile of leishmaniasis at a reference service in the state of Alagoas, Brazil, from january 2000 to september 2008. Nunes Wda S, Araújo SR, Calheiros CM. UNCISAL, Maceió, AL, Brazil. Abstract Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease found in the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Brazil, the disease is an important public health problem, occurring in most states, but mainly in the Northeast region of the country, with the state of Alagoas having a significant number of confirmed cases. The present study establishes and discusses the epidemiological profile of cases of leishmaniases treated at the Reference Center of Alagoas, Hospital Escola Hélvio de Farias Auto, between January 2000 and October 2008. During thisperiod, records of 2,104 patients notified to the hospital Epidemiological Surveillance Center were reviewed. The epidemiology of leishmaniasis, both visceral and tegumentary, has shown a profile that has changed over throughout the years, with a decrease in the number of notified cases. Disease occurrence was associated with lower social economic classes, and affected mainly rural workers in general, housewives and students.
	PMID: 20963317 [PubMed - in process]
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2.	Trop Biomed. 2010 Aug;27(2):193-9. CD 28 gene polymorphism and plasma concentration of soluble CD 28 in Irania n patients with visceral leishmaniasis. Hashemi SH, Hajilooi M, Fallah M, Naghili B. Department of infectious diseases, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Hamedan, Iran. Abstract In visceral leishmaniasis (VL), the development of protective immunity is associated with expansion of leishmania-specific T-cell responses. Because of the essential role of CD28 in the effectiveness of T-cell activation, this study was carried out to investigate the CD28 gene polymorphism and plasma levels of soluble (s) CD28 molecule in Iranian patients with VL. Plasma concentrations of CD28 in 88 patients with VL, 132 individual with subclinical leishmaniasis, and 100 seronegative healthy controls were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Genotyping of CD28 gene polymorphism was performed by polymerase chain reaction based allotyping method using allele-specific primers for C or T at intron 3 position +17 in three groups. The frequency of CC genotype was significantly higher in subclinical VL patients (42.4%) than active VL group (27.3%) and healthy controls (16%) (P < 0.001). Also, the frequency of allele C among subclinical VL group (57.6%) was significantly higher than active VL (40.9%) and control groups (34%) (p = 0.003). No significant differences were observed between the plasma levels of sCD28 in three groups. Our findings suggest that the CD28 gene may have significant role in the protection of active VL in the Iranian population.
	PMID: 20962715 [PubMed - in process]
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3.	J Biol Chem. 2010 Oct 20. [Epub ahead of print] The Oligopeptidase B of Leishmania regulates parasite enolase and immune evasion. Swenerton RK, Zhang S, Sajid M, Medzihradszky KF, Craik CS, Kelly BL, McKerrow JH. UC San Francisco, United States; Abstract Proteases are a ubiquitous group of enzymes that play key roles in the life cycle of parasites, in the host-parasite relationship, and in the pathogenesis of parasitic diseases. Furthermore, proteases are targets for the development of new anti-parasitic therapy. Protozoan parasites like Leishmania predominantly express Clan CA cysteine proteases for key life cycle functions. It was therefore unexpected to find a high level of serine protease activity expressed by Leishmania donovani. Purification of this activity followed by mass spectrometry identified oligopeptidase B (OPB; Clan SC, family S9A) as the responsible enzyme. This was confirmed by gene knockout of OPB, which resulted in the disappearance of the detected serine protease activity of Leishmania extracts. To delineate the specific role of OPB in parasite physiology, proteomic analysis was carried out on OPB -/- versus wildtype parasites. Four protein species were significantly elevated in OPB -/- parasites, and all four were identified by mass spectrometry as enolase. This increased enolase was enzymatically inactive and associated with the parasite membrane. Aside from its classic role in carbohydrate metabolism, enolase was recently found to localize to membranes where it binds host plasminogen and functions as a virulence factor for several pathogens. As expected, there was a striking alteration in macrophage responses to Leishmania when OPB was deleted. While wildtype parasites elicited little, if any, response from infected macrophages, OPB -/- parasites induced a massive upregulation in gene transcription. Additionally, these OPB -/- parasites displayed decreased virulence in the murine footpad infection model.
	PMID: 20961853 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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4.	Parasitology. 2010 Oct 20:1-8. [Epub ahead of print] Chemotherapy against human African trypanosomiasis: Is there a road to success? Burri C. Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Department of Medicines Research, Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. Abstract SUMMARYFor over fifty years, human African trypanosomiasis (HAT, sleeping sickness) has been treated with suramin, pentamidine and the very toxic organo-arsenical melarsoprol that was the only drug available for effective treatment of the second stage of the disease. Recently there have been significant efforts using molecular and biochemical approaches to drug design, including high-throughput screening, but the number of lead compounds with promising activity against T. brucei spp. and an acceptable toxicity index has remained astonishingly small. Clinical research continues to be difficult due to the economic constraints and the complexity of trials on a low prevalence disease in remote and impoverished African regions. Despite those limitations the situation for the patients is improving thanks to the combination of a number of critical factors. By the late 1990s the disease had reached epidemic levels that triggered political support. WHO would sign a donation agreement with the manufacturers for all drugs to treat HAT. A result of this agreement was that eflornithine which is much safer than melarsoprol became available and widely used by non-governmental organizations. The Impamel I and II programmes demonstrated that against all odds the conduct of clinical trials on HAT was feasible. This allowed the initiation of trials on combination therapies which eventually resulted in the nifurtimox-eflornithine combination treatment (NECT). This combination is currently being introduced as first line treatment, and there is even the prospect of having a new compound, fexinidazole, in the development pipeline. This review summarizes the key information about the existing drugs and gives a comprehensive summary about the recent and currently ongoing efforts towards new drugs.
	PMID: 20961469 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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5.	Cell Host Microbe. 2010 Jul 22;8(1):16-9. Imaging parasites at different scales. Frischknecht F. Department of Infectious Diseases, Parasitology, University of Heidelberg Medical School, Im Neuenheimer Feld 324, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany. freddy.frischknecht@med.uni-heidelberg.de Abstract Pathogens interact with their hosts at different spatial and temporal scales. Studying these interactions therefore requires a wide range of imaging tools and approaches that bridge physics and biology, as shown by this Minireview focusing on recent studies of the causative agents of malaria, toxoplasmosis, and sleeping sickness. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
	PMID: 20638638 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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