Research Publications (Food Safety)

mSphere, Ahead of Print. The pathogenesis of Toxoplasma gondii is mainly due to tissue damage caused by the repeating lytic cycles of the parasite. Many proteins localized to the pellicle of the parasite, particularly kinases, have been identified as critical regulators of the Toxoplasma lytic cycle. However, little is known about the associated protein phosphatases.

Parasite Immunology, Accepted Article. Until now, no completely effective parasite-specific drugs or vaccines have been approved for the treatment of cryptosporidiosis. Through the separation and identification of the sporozoite membrane protein of Cryptosporidium parvum (C. parvum), 20 related proteins were obtained.

Infection and Immunity, Ahead of Print. Cryptosporidium is a leading cause of moderate-to-severe diarrhea in children, which is one of the major causes of death in children under 5 years old. Nitazoxanide is the only FDA-approved treatment for cryptosporidiosis. However, it has limited efficacy in immunosuppressed patients and malnourished children. Therefore, it is urgent to develop novel therapies against this parasite.

The global distribution of breast cancer and the opportunistic nature of the parasite have resulted in many patients with breast cancer becoming infected with toxoplasmosis. However, very limited information is available about the potential effects of tamoxifen on chronic toxoplasmosis and its contribution to the reactivation of the latent infection. The present study investigated the potential effects of tamoxifen on chronic toxoplasmosis in animal models (Swiss albino mice).

Interpretation of IgM anti-Toxoplasma can be problematic given the phenomena of “natural” IgM. We analyzed 1.503 sera obtained during prenatal care program, and we established natural and false-positive results by doing follow-up. In 101 samples the concordance between ELISA assay and two semi-automatized systems (Elecsys and VIDAS) was calculated.

Giardia lamblia (G. lamblia) is an important cause of severe malabsorption, weight loss, physical and mental retardation especially in infants and children throughout the world. Metronidazole (MTZ) is the standard drug used for their treatment which possesses several drawbacks with low efficacy. Gold nanoparticles possess a broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity and could be considered as a future alternative to many microbial agents.

Toxoplasma gondii infects almost all warm-blooded animals, and toxoplasmosis is a common zoonotic parasitic disease worldwide. A nested PCR with high specificity and sensitivity was developed in this study based on the data collected on the infection rate of toxoplasmosis in chickens in Shandong province, and the effect of low temperature on the infectivity of tachyzoites was investigated. The sampling data showed that the total prevalence of T.

Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements found in the majority of eukaryotic genomes. Genomic studies of protozoan parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa have only reported a handful of TEs in some species and a complete absence in others.

The aim of the study was to describe the heterogeneity of the humoral immune response and pregnancy outcomes in infected women during an outbreak of toxoplasmosis. Forty-two pregnant women referred to the University Hospital of Santa Maria (HUSM), RS, Brazil in 2018 and 2019, were evaluated. Clinical symptoms were reported in 33.3% of the patients. The majority (64.3%) of symptomatic pregnant women had anti T. gondii IgM antibodies index >7.0.

We identified an unusual subtype of a Cryptosporidium sp. horse genotype as the cause of cryptosporidiosis in a 13-year-old girl in Poland who was undergoing immunosuppressive treatment for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. The same subtype was identified in a horse the girl had ridden.

Livestock are commonly affected by gastrointestinal protozoan parasites, including Giardia duodenalis. In small ruminants, G. duodenalis infection may decrease carcass weight and dressing percentage. Current study was done to determine the prevalence, assemblage distribution, and zoonotic significance of Giardia infection in sheep and goats in Shiraz, southwestern Iran.

Toxoplasma gondii is a zoonotic parasite that infects the brain of humans and causes cerebral toxoplasmosis. The recommended drugs for the treatment or prophylaxis of toxoplasmosis are pyrimethamine (PY) and sulfadiazine (SZ), which have serious side effects. Other drugs available for toxoplasmosis are poorly tolerated.

The invasive nature of Toxoplasma gondii is closely related to the properties of its cytoskeleton, which is constituted by a group of diverse structural and dynamic components that play key roles during the infection. Even if there have been numerous reports about the composition and function of the Toxoplasma cytoskeleton, the ultrastructural organization of some of these components has not yet been fully characterized.

by My-Hang Huynh, Vern B. Carruthers The Toxoplasma gondii lytic cycle is a repetition of host cell invasion, replication, egress, and re-invasion into the next host cell. While the molecular players involved in egress have been studied in greater detail in recent years, the signals and pathways for triggering egress from the host cell have not been fully elucidated.

Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, Volume 69, Issue 3, Page 943-957, May 2022. Toxoplasmosis is one of the most frequent food-borne infections in humans caused by an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. Rodents, as intermediate and reservoir hosts, play key role in the epidemiology of toxoplasmosis; because they are the main source of infection for the Felidae family members and establish the parasite life cycle.

Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, Volume 69, Issue 3, Page 1589-1595, May 2022. The intense contact of children with domestic animals or environments contaminated with faeces of these animals, together with habits related to lack of hygiene, can facilitate infection by zoonoses. The study evaluated the seroprevalence and risk factors associated with toxoplasmosis and toxocariasis in schoolchildren in the city of Jataizinho, Paraná.

Conventional wastewater treatment plants do not effectively remove parasitic protozoa resulting in their presence in wastewater effluent. Therefore, agricultural reuse of wastewater effluent could be a route of Cryptosporidium transmission into the food chain.

Pectobacterium parvum is an emerging bacterial pathogen that causes aerial stem rot in potato plants. To date, genomes of a few P. parvum isolates have been sequenced and characterized, but the assemblies still remain highly fragmented. Here, we present the first complete, high-quality genome of P. parvum FN20211, which was isolated from a potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) plant showing symptoms of aerial stem rot.

The Apicomplexa are famously named for their apical complex, a constellation of organelles at their apical end dedicated to invasion of their host cells. In contrast, at the other end of the cell, the basal complex (BC) has been overshadowed since it is much less prominent and specific functions were not immediately obvious. However, in the past decade a staggering array of functions have been associated with the BC and strides have been made in understanding its structure.

by William R. Hardin, Germain C. M. Alas, Nikita Taparia, Elizabeth B. Thomas, Melissa C. Steele-Ogus, Kelli L. Hvorecny, Aaron R. Halpern, Pavla Tůmová, Justin M. Kollman, Joshua C. Vaughan, Nathan J. Sniadecki, Alexander R. Paredez Attachment to the intestinal epithelium is critical to the lifestyle of the ubiquitous parasite Giardia lamblia. The ventrolateral flange is a sheet-like membrane protrusion at the interface between parasites and attached surfaces.

Background Toxoplasma gondii can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, including humans and dogs. Humans can become infected with T. gondii by petting dogs that have eaten or contacted infected cat feces. The aim of this study was to evaluate T. gondii infections in dogs from central China. From 2015 to 2021, a total of 536 dog samples (195 fecal, 81 hearts, and 260 serum samples) from Henan Province were collected. Heart juice or serum samples (n = 341) were tested for T.

Toxoplasma gondii, a major zoonotic pathogen, possess a significant genetic and phenotypic diversity that have been proposed to be responsible for the variation in clinical outcomes, mainly related to reproductive failure and ocular and neurological signs. Different T. gondii haplogroups showed strong phenotypic differences in laboratory mouse infections, which provide a suitable model for mimicking acute and chronic infections.

In recent years, massive attention has been attracted to the development and application of machine learning (ML) in the field of infectious diseases, not only serving as a catalyst for academic studies but also as a key means of detecting pathogenic microorganisms, implementing public health surveillance, exploring host-pathogen interactions, discovering drug and vaccine candidates, and so forth.

Giardia intestinalis is a protozoan parasite causing diarrheal disease, giardiasis, after extracellular infection of humans and other mammals’ intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) of the upper small intestine. The parasite has two main life cycle stages: replicative trophozoites and transmissive cysts.

Parasitic infections caused by protozoans that infect the mucosal surfaces are widely neglected worldwide. Collectively, Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, Cryptosporidium spp. and Trichomonas vaginalis infect more than a billion people in the world, being a public health problem mainly in developing countries. However, the exact incidence and prevalence data depend on the population examined.