BACKGROUND Current efforts to control human soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) involve the periodic mass administration of benzimidazole drugs to school aged children and other at- risk groups. Given that high levels of resistance to these drugs have developed in roundworms of livestock, there is a need to monitor drug efficacy in human STHs. The current study aimed to evaluate an in vitro egg h...

This manuscript presents the first extensive phylogenetics analysis of a key family of immune regulators, the interferon regulatory factor (IRF) family. The IRF family encodes transcription factors that play important roles in immune defense, stress responses, reproduction, development, and carcinogenesis. Several times during their evolution, the IRF genes have undergone expansion and diversif...

The cholinergic class of anthelmintic drugs is used for the control of parasitic nematodes. One of this class of drugs, tribendimidine (a symmetrical diamidine derivative, of amidantel), was developed in China for use in humans in the mid-1980s. It has a broader-spectrum anthelmintic action against soil-transmitted helminthiasis than other cholinergic anthelmintics, and is effective against hoo...

FREE-LIVING SOIL NEMATODE POPULATION DIVERSITY DYNAMICS AT AN ASIMINA TILOBA SITE IN VIRGINIA. Sarah R. Marzec & Theresa M. Grana, Department of Biological Sciences, Univ. of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg VA, 22401. Nematodes are microscopic roundworms that are highly successful in many environments. The model organism Caenorhabditis elegans is specifically a free-living nematode which can be...

Clinical and subclinical intestinal parasitism is characterized by impaired production (Sykes & Coop, 1976; Steele, 1978) with poor growth rates in young animals and loss of body weight in older animals. Sheep also incur severe reductions in wool growth. A number of comprehensive reviews prepared over the last decade characterize and contrast the magnitude of such impairment across a range of i...

Previous studies indicated that inorganic pyrophosphatase of Ascaris suum (AsPPase) plays an important role in larval survival in the host. Here we describe a precise role for AsPPase in larval molting and development and also describe the potential role of recombinant AsPPase (rAsPPase) in protective immunity to A. suum infection. Using reverse transcriptase PCR analysis, we found that disrupt...

Juvenile seals are sometimes encountered in waters around South Australia with injuries and/or diseases that require veterinary treatment. Two cases are reported where apparently stable animals died soon after being rescued due to quite disparate conditions. In Case 1 a juvenile male New Zealand fur seal (Arctocephalus forsteri) was found unexpectedly dead in its enclosure. A necropsy examinati...

The soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis is a pathogen of insects and nematodes and is very closely related to, if not the same species as, Bacillus cereus and Bacillus anthracis. The defining characteristic of B. thuringiensis that sets it apart from B. cereus and B. anthracis is the production of crystal (Cry) proteins, which are pore-forming toxins or pore-forming proteins (PFPs). Although ...

UNLABELLED Toxocariasis is a helminthozoonosis due to the infestation of humans by roundworms, Toxocara spp. Actual informations indicate it the most common worm infection in many countries, typically connected with rural areas. The authors analyzed the documentation of 84 children with positive serology to this worm. An individual record was made and following data were restricted: anamnesis d...

The IndustrialR e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e ; SCIENCE is the official organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Information regard-Reports ing membership in the Association may be secured from the office of the permanent secretary in the Smithsonian Two paintings, "The Alchemical Making of a Medicine in the 16th Century," by Michael Diemer, and the "Elixer of Life" b...