Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a hepatobiliary malignancy exhibiting high incidence in countries with endemic liver-fluke infection. We analyzed 489 CCAs from 10 countries, combining whole-genome (71 cases), targeted/exome, copy-number, gene expression, and DNA methylation information. Integrative clustering defined 4 CCA clusters-fluke-positive CCAs (clusters 1/2) are enriched in ERBB2 amplificat...

A Laotian man who had resided only in the north-central United States for 8 years sought care for an acute, progressive syndrome of severe dyspnea, chest pain, bilateral pneumothoraces, lung and liver nodules, and marked peripheral blood eosinophilia. He habitually ate raw crabmeat imported pickled or frozen from Southeast Asia; he denied eating local crustaceans. Ova consistent with the lung f...

Cholangiocarcinoma is a common hepatobiliary carcinoma in Thailand. It is believed that both chronic exposure to liver fluke infestation and nitrosamine exposure are the two main underlying factors leading to the carcinogenesis. Here, the author further extrapolates and proposes a new hypothesis based on the environmental ecological data that the stimulation of fresh water fish by contaminated ...

Epidemiological parameters such as transmission rate, rate of parasite-induced host mortality, and rate of development of host defenses can be assessed indirectly by characterizing the manner in which parasite burdens change with host age. For parasites that are host generalists, estimates of these important parameters may be host-species dependent. In a cross-sectional study, we determined age...

Proteolytic activity present in the excreted/secreted (ES) material of newly excysted juvenile (NEJ) Fasciola hepatica was biochemically analyzed. By gelatin substrate SDS-PAGE, only one region of activity was observed in the NEJ ES material at a molecular mass of 29 kDa. Both the secreted cathepsin L from adult fluke and the 29-kDa proteolytic activity of NEJ ES show a common pH optimum of 7.5...

In the invertebrate liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, there is evidence that 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin) increases glycolysis (1, 2), glycogenolysis (1), and phosphorylase activity (3). However, previous studies in mammalian liver, in vitro and in vivo, have yielded conflicting results concerning the effect of serotonin on hepatic glycogen content, hepatic phosphorylase, and blood glucose. So...