Background: Toll like receptors play a major role in immune responses against Leishmania parasites. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of vaccination with live attenuated L. major and TLR4 agonist in protection against L. major infection. Methods: Attenuated L. major was prepared by continuous sub-culturing of the parasite. A total of 90 mice were assigned to 9 groups including 6 groups of BAL...

Hosts may mitigate the impact of parasites by two broad strategies: resistance, which limits parasite burden, and tolerance, which limits the fitness or health cost of increasing parasite burden. The degree and causes of variation in both resistance and tolerance are expected to influence host-parasite evolutionary and epidemiological dynamics and inform disease management, yet very little empi...

BACKGROUND Studies in murine models and human populations have indicated that the collagen-rich granulomatous response against parasite eggs trapped in the liver is associated with the development of severe hepatosplenic schistosomiasis, characterized by periportal fibrosis and portal hypertension. The role of the humoral response in parasite susceptibility has been well established, but its pa...

Hosts can in principle employ two different strategies to defend themselves against parasites: resistance and tolerance. Animals typically exhibit considerable genetic variation for resistance (the ability to limit parasite burden). However, little is known about whether animals can evolve tolerance (the ability to limit the damage caused by a given parasite burden). Using rodent malaria in lab...

A dynamic model for nematode parasites in lambs which links their adult parasite burden with liveweight gain was extended to investigate alternate grazing with cattle to provide relatively larval-free pasture for finishing lambs. Liveweight performance of weaned lambs was tracked fortnightly under rotational grazing using three cattle:sheep ratios, with three initial parasite burdens and two in...

The early-phase migration dynamics of Echinococcus multilocularis in the intermediate hosts remain largely unknown. We compared parasite burden intestine, liver and faeces DBA/2 C57BL/6 mouse strains using parasite-specific quantitative PCR. Our results indicated that parasites invaded mainly from middle segments small intestine completed to within 24 h p.i. mice had lower DNA burdens but highe...

BACKGROUND In falciparum malaria sequestration of erythrocytes containing mature forms of Plasmodium falciparum in the microvasculature of vital organs is central to pathology, but quantitation of this hidden sequestered parasite load in vivo has not previously been possible. The peripheral blood parasite count measures only the circulating, relatively non-pathogenic parasite numbers. P. falcip...

OBJECTIVES The efficacy of different formulations of the naphthoquinone buparvaquone and two phosphate prodrugs in in vivo models of both visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis is described. METHODS Several topical formulations of buparvaquone containing acceptable excipients were tested in vivo against Leishmania major cutaneous lesions in BALB/c mice. In vivo studies against Leishmania donova...