What's new for 'Trypanosomatids' in PubMed

This message contains My NCBI what's new results from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Do not reply directly to this message.

Sender's message:

Sent on Wednesday, 2012 April 25
Search: kinetoplastids OR kinetoplastid OR Kinetoplastida OR "trypanosoma brucei" OR leishmania OR brucei OR leishmaniasis OR "African trypanosomiasis"

Click here to view complete results in PubMed (Results may change over time.)
To unsubscribe from these e-mail updates click here.

PubMed Results

Items 1 - 9 of 9

1.	ISRN Pharmacol. 2012;2012:104540. Epub 2012 Mar 15. Activity of Cuban Plants Extracts against Leishmania amazonensis. García M, Monzote L, Scull R, Herrera P. Source Department of Parasitology, Institute of Tropical Medicine "Pedro Kourí," Apdo Postal No. 601, Havana 10400, Cuba. Abstract Natural products have long been providing important drug leads for infectious diseases. Leishmaniasis is a major health problem worldwide that affects millions of people especially in the developing nations. There is no immunoprophylaxis (vaccination) available for Leishmania infections, and conventional treatments are unsatisfactory; therefore, antileishmanial drugs are urgently needed. In this work, 48 alcoholic extracts from 46 Cuban plants were evaluated by an in vitro bioassay against Leishmania amazonensis. Furthermore, their toxicity was assayed against murine macrophage. The three most potent extracts against the amastigote stage of Leishmania amazonensis were from Hura crepitans, Bambusa vulgaris, and Simarouba glauca.
	PMID: 22530133 [PubMed - in process]
	Related citations

2.	J Trop Med. 2012;2012:124068. Epub 2012 Feb 28. Natural breeding places for phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: psychodidae) in a semiarid region of bahia state, Brazil. Sangiorgi B, Miranda DN, Oliveira DF, Santos EP, Gomes FR, Santos EO, Barral A, Miranda JC. Source Centro de Pesquisas Gonçalo Moniz/FIOCRUZ, 40295-001, Salvador, BA, Brazil. Abstract Few microhabitats have been previously identified as natural breeding places for phlebotomine sand flies so far, and little is known about the influence of climate variables in their density. The present study was conducted in a dry region with a semiarid climate, where visceral leishmaniasis occurs in humans and dogs. The occurrence of breeding places in specific microhabitats was investigated in soil samples collected from five houses, which were also the location used for sampling of adults. All the microhabitats sampled by our study were identified as natural breeding places due to the occurrence of immature forms of sand flies. On a weekly basis, the number of adult sand flies captured was positively correlated with the mean temperature from preceding weeks. These results, in addition to promoting an advance in the knowledge of sand flies biology, may furnish a tool for optimizing the control of the sand flies, by indicating the most suitable periods and microhabitats for the application of insecticides.
	PMID: 22529861 [PubMed - in process]
	Related citations

3.	Indian J Sex Transm Dis. 2012 Jan;33(1):62-4. Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis - A rare cutaneous presentation in an HIV-positive patient. Purohit HM, Shah AN, Amin BK, Shevkani MR. Source Centre of Excellence, Antiretroviral Therapy Centre, Room No. 201-202, O.P.D. Building, B.J. Medical College and Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
	PMID: 22529461 [PubMed - in process]
	Related citations

4.	Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 23. [Epub ahead of print] Crystal structure of a Trypanosoma brucei metacaspase. McLuskey K, Rudolf J, Proto WR, Isaacs NW, Coombs GH, Moss CX, Mottram JC. Source Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation, College of Medical, Veterinary, and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8TA, United Kingdom. Abstract Metacaspases are distantly related caspase-family cysteine peptidases implicated in programmed cell death in plants and lower eukaryotes. They differ significantly from caspases because they are calcium-activated, arginine-specific peptidases that do not require processing or dimerization for activity. To elucidate the basis of these differences and to determine the impact they might have on the control of cell death pathways in lower eukaryotes, the previously undescribed crystal structure of a metacaspase, an inactive mutant of metacaspase 2 (MCA2) from Trypanosoma brucei, has been determined to a resolution of 1.4 Å. The structure comprises a core caspase fold, but with an unusual eight-stranded β-sheet that stabilizes the protein as a monomer. Essential aspartic acid residues, in the predicted S1 binding pocket, delineate the arginine-specific substrate specificity. In addition, MCA2 possesses an unusual N terminus, which encircles the protein and traverses the catalytic dyad, with Y31 acting as a gatekeeper residue. The calcium-binding site is defined by samarium coordinated by four aspartic acid residues, whereas calcium binding itself induces an allosteric conformational change that could stabilize the active site in a fashion analogous to subunit processing in caspases. Collectively, these data give insights into the mechanistic basis of substrate specificity and mode of activation of MCA2 and provide a detailed framework for understanding the role of metacaspases in cell death pathways of lower eukaryotes.
	PMID: 22529389 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
	Related citations

5.	J Mol Model. 2012 Apr 15. [Epub ahead of print] Probing the structure of Leishmania major DHFR TS and structure based virtual screening of peptide library for the identification of anti-leishmanial leads. Rajasekaran R, Chen YP. Source Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3086, Australia. Abstract Leishmaniasis, a multi-faceted ethereal disease is considered to be one of the World's major communicable diseases that demands exhaustive research and control measures. The substantial data on these protozoan parasites has not been utilized completely to develop potential therapeutic strategies against Leishmaniasis. Dihydrofolate reductase thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS) plays a major role in the infective state of the parasite and hence the DHFR-TS based drugs remains of much interest to researchers working on Leishmaniasis. Although, crystal structures of DHFR-TS from different species including Plasmodium falciparum and Trypanosoma cruzi are available, the experimentally determined structure of the Leishmania major DHFR-TS has not yet been reported in the Protein Data Bank. A high quality three dimensional structure of L.major DHFR-TS has been modeled through the homology modeling approach. Carefully refined and the energy minimized structure of the modeled protein was validated using a number of structure validation programs to confirm its structure quality. The modeled protein structure was used in the process of structure based virtual screening to figure out a potential lead structure against DHFR TS. The lead molecule identified has a binding affinity of 0.51 nM and clearly follows drug like properties.
	PMID: 22527276 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
	Related citations

6.	Invest Clin. 2011 Dec;52(4):365-75. Immunological correlates of cure in the first American cutaneous leishmaniasis patient treated by immunotherapy in Argentina. A case report. García Bustos MF, Barrio AB, Parodi Ramoneda CM, Ramos F, Mora MC, Convit J, Basombrío MA. Source Instituto de Patología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Nacional de Salta, Salta, Argentina. mfbustos@unsa.edu.ar Abstract A patient with localized cutaneous leishmaniasis due to Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis infection was treated with an antigen containing heat-killed L. (L.) amazonensis promastigotes plus BCG. Expression of T-cell differentiation, memory and senescence receptors markers were analyzed on T cell subpopulations, in order to establish the correlation between the percentages of expression of these receptors and his clinical status, at different stages of his follow up. The following case reports on the achievement of a successful clinical outcome with complete resolution after receiving immunotherapy. A thorough clinical and immunological follow up supporting the healing process of this patient's lesion is presented in detail.
	PMID: 22523846 [PubMed - in process]
	Related citations

7.	Nat Prod Commun. 2012 Feb;7(2):165-8. Antiparasitic and anticancer constituents of the endophytic fungus Aspergillus sp. strain F1544. Martínez-Luis S, Cherigo L, Arnold E, Spadafora C, Gerwick WH, Cubilla-Rios L. Source Center for Drug Discovery, Institute for Advanced Scientific Research and High Technology Services, City of Knowledge, PO Box 0843-01103, Panama. Abstract With the combined goal of finding the best anti-parasitic and anti-cancer activities as well as isolating the bioactive agents and studying their structures and biological properties, we proceeded to perform a small-scale cultivation of Aspergillus sp. strain F1544 using Potato Dextrose, Malt Extract, Czapek Dox and Eight Vegetables media. From the more promising extracts (obtaining using potato dextrose and czapek dox media in large scale) of this fungus, we isolated the five compounds: pseurotin A (1), 14-norpseurotin A (2), FD-838 (3), and pseurotin D (4), and fumoquinone B (5). All compounds showed good antileishmanial and moderate anticancer activities.
	PMID: 22474943 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
	Related citations

8.	J Egypt Soc Parasitol. 2011 Dec;41(3):785-800. Interrelation of antioxidant, anticancer and antilieshmania effects of some selected Egyptian plants and their phenolic constituents. Abdel-Hady NM, Dawoud GT, El-Hela AA, Morsy TA. Source Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy (Girls), Al-Azhar University, Egypt. Abstract Medicinal plants are the most potential resource of new therapeutic agents. They are diverse, largely productive, biologically active and chemically unique; among their constituents "polyphenol compounds group" one of the main determinant factors in evaluating the pharmacological potentials i.e. polyphenols display an array of pharmacological properties such as antioxidant, immunostimulant, antitumor and antiparasitic effects. Cancer is a dreadful human disease, increasing with changing life style, nutrition and global warming while current available anticancer drugs cause serious side effects in most instances. Several reports suggested the relationship between antioxidant, anticancer and antiparasitic effects; they suggested that they act indirectly through promoting host resistance, restabilizing body equilibrim and conditioning body tissues in addition to their direct effect on certain parasites involved in cancer etiology. This work was conducted for estimation of total phenolic, flavonoids, phenylethanoid glycoside and iridoid content of twenty-three selected Egyptian plants as well as screening of their anticancer, antioxidant and antileishmanial effects, the overall gained results for suggest that the most suitable medicinal plant used as anticancer and antioxidant is Petrea volubilis L. which contain adequate mixture of total phenolic compounds 88.7 mg% and flavonoids 50.80 mg% and also suggest that flavonoid compounds are the category of phenolic compounds possess significant antioxidant and anticancer effects while the antilieshamnia screening revealed that Thymus decussatus Benth. extract exhibited the highest effect due to the presence of flavonoids and iridoids in adequate combination where iridoid compounds 201 mg% and flavonoid content was 128 mg%.
	PMID: 22435170 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
	Related citations

9.	Hum Vaccin. 2011 Nov;7(11):1184-91. Epub 2011 Nov 1. Advances and challenges towards a vaccine against Chagas disease. Quijano-Hernandez I, Dumonteil E. Source Laboratorio de Parasitología, Centro de Investigaciones Regionales 'Dr. Hideyo Noguchi', Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Merida, Mexico. Abstract Chagas disease is major public health problem, affecting nearly 10 million people, characterized by cardiac alterations leading to congestive heart failure and death of 20-40% of the patients infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoan parasite responsible for the disease. A vaccine would be key to improve disease control and we review here the recent advances and challenges of a T. cruzi vaccine. There is a growing consensus that a protective immune response requires the activation of a Th1 immune profile, with the stimulation of CD8 (+) T cells. Several vacines types, including recombinant proteins, DNA and viral vectors, as well as heterologous prime-boost combinations, have been found immunogenic and protective in mouse models, providing proof-of-concept data on the feasibility of a preventive or therapeutic vaccine to control a T. cruzi infection. However, several challenges such as better end-points, safety issues and trial design need to be addressed for further vaccine development to proceed. PMCID: PMC3323496 Free PMC Article
	PMID: 22048121 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
	Related citations