We used the RAPD-PCR method for distinguishing the main Old World Leishmania parasites Leishmania tropica, L. major, and L. infantum and applied it to Sauroleishmania species from Iran. Twelve out of 21 tested primers were suitable for identification of these parasites. The Jaccard similarity index was 0.30 for L. tropica and L. infantum as well as for L. major and L. infantum. The similarity c...

background: cutaneous leishmaniasis (cl) is endemic in southeastern anatolia, mainly in sanliurfa and hatay provinces, and the causative agents are mostly leishmania tropica and less frequently l. infantum . here, we report the first mal-di-tof analyses of leishmania promastigotes obtained from the cultures of two cl cases from osmaniye and hatay provinces who were initially diagnosed by micros...

Two cDNA clones for plant cysteine proteinases have been isolated from a Carica papaya (paw-paw, papaya) leaf tissue cDNA library by using a mixture of 16 synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotides as a hybridization probe. The inserted regions are 311 and 440 base-pairs in length and have the potential to encode a region corresponding to the C-terminal region of two proteins which are homologous with...

Background: The causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Iran is Leishmania infantum (L. infantum) (Mediterranean type) and its major reservoir host is the dog. Ob-jective: To compare the serological methods including direct agglutination test (DAT), indirect immunofluorescent-antibody test (IFA) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent as-say (ELISA) for serodiagnosis of endemic strain of L. i...

During pathologic vessel remodeling, vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) embedded within the collagen-rich matrix of the artery wall mobilize uncharacterized proteolytic systems to infiltrate the subendothelial space and generate neointimal lesions. Although the VSMC-derived serine proteinases, plasminogen activator and plasminogen, the cysteine proteinases, cathepsins L, S, and K, and the mat...

background : trichomonas vaginalis is a pathogenic protozoon and may be contaminated with dsrna virus called trichomonas vaginalis virus (tvv). the viral infection is an important factor for its patho-genesis and sensitivity to metronidazole. the presence of tvv is associated with qualitative and quantitative expression of cysteine proteinases and surface immunogenic; p270. the purpose of this ...

BACKGROUND Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) caused by species from the Leishmania donovani complex is the most severe form of the disease, lethal if untreated. VL caused by Leishmania infantum is a zoonosis with an increasing number of human cases and millions of dogs infected in the Old and the New World. In this study, L. infantum (syn. L.chagasi) strains were isolated from human and canine VL cas...

We used site-directed mutagenesis to alter the specificity of human cystatin C, an inhibitor with a broad reactivity against cysteine proteinases. Nine cystatin C variants containing amino acid substitutions in the N-terminal (L9W, V10W, V10F and V10R) and/or the C-terminal (W106G) enzyme-binding regions were designed and produced in Escherichia coli. It was discovered that the inhibition profi...

Cysteine proteinases expressed by schistosomes appear to play key roles in the digestion of host hemoglobin, the principal source of amino acid nutrients utilized by these parasites. We have shown previously that the predominant cysteine proteinase activity in soluble extracts and excretory/secretory (ES) products of adults of Schistosoma mansoni and S. japonicum is cathepsin L-like in its subs...