Schistosomes are intravascular helminths that infect over 200 million people worldwide. Deposition of eggs by adult schistosomes stimulates Th2 responses to egg antigens and induces granulomatous pathology that is a hallmark of schistosome infection. Paradoxically, schistosomes require host immune function for their development and reproduction and for egress of parasite eggs from the host. To ...

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis is one of the most widely distributed parasitic diseases in the world. Schistosoma japonicum, a zoonotic parasite with a wide range of mammalian hosts, is one of the major pathogens of this disease. Although numerous studies on schistosomiasis japonica have been performed using laboratory animal models, systematic comparative analysis of whole-genome expression profil...

It is well known that geographic strains of MATERIALS AND METHODS schistosomes vary in infectivity for their host snails2 6 . l Z z 2 . This is of importance not only for Snail Strains. the introduction of schistosomes into previously uninfected areas, but because of the potential for the spread of drug resistant strains of worms. B. glabrata, an albino strain of Puerto Rican origin, has been m...

The proportion of ail cancers represented by urinary bladder cancer varies greatly wi thin Africa and the Middle East, and the ratio of male to female frequency of occurrence is nearly as variable (Parkin, 1986). ln Egyt, the proportion of bladder cancers among aIl cancers in men is twce that in Zambia, four times that in Zimbabwe and 10 times that in Algeria. Very few formai assessments of the...

Praziquantel (PZQ) is effectively the only drug currently available for treatment and control of schistosomiasis, a disease affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Many anthelmintics, likely including PZQ, target ion channels, membrane protein complexes essential for normal functioning of the neuromusculature and other tissues. Despite this fact, only a few classes of parasitic helm...

This paper gives an overview of the recent progress made in the use and application of geographical information systems (GIS) and remotely sensed (RS) satellite sensor data for the epidemiology and control of schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa. Details are given of the use of GIS to collate, map and analyse available parasitological data. The use of RS data to understand better the broad sca...

Draft genome sequences for Schistosoma japonicum and Schistosoma mansoni are now available. The schistosome genome encodes approximately 13,000 protein encoding genes for which the function of only a small minority is understood. The new genes represent potential intervention targets. Molecular tools are needed to determine the importance of these new genes. There is a role for transgenesis in ...