BACKGROUND The PCR assays usually employed for Leishmania diagnosis does not simultaneously detect a constitutive gene that would certify the viability of the DNA sample. We present a multiplex PCR approach for the simultaneous diagnosis of the Leishmania sp. kDNA fragment and a catalytic domain segment of a conserved region of the mammalian gapdh gene. METHODOLOGY The proposed multiplex prot...

Acute Trypanosoma cruzi infections can be asymptomatic, but chronically infected individuals can die of Chagas' disease. The transfer of the parasite mitochondrial kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) minicircle to the genome of chagasic patients can explain the pathogenesis of the disease; in cases of Chagas' disease with evident cardiomyopathy, the kDNA minicircles integrate mainly into retrotransposons at...

Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA), the mitochondrial DNA in kinetoplastids, is a network containing several thousand topologically interlocked minicircles. We investigated cell cycle-dependent changes in the localization of kDNA replication enzymes by combining immunofluorescence with either hydroxyurea synchronization or incorporation of fluorescein-dUTP into the endogenous gaps of newly replicated minic...

background: cutaneous leishmaniasis constitutes a major public health problem in many parts of the world including iran. the primary objective of this study was to identify leishmania spe­cies in endemic districts of kerman province, south-eastern iran . methods: this study was conducted by random sampling as cross- sectional descriptive between 2008 and 2010. overall, 203 skin scraping smears ...

ATP-dependent protease complexes are present in all living organisms, including the 26S proteasome in eukaryotes, Archaea, and Actinomycetales, and the HslVU protease in eubacteria. The structure of HslVU protease resembles that of the 26S proteasome, and the simultaneous presence of both proteases in one organism was deemed unlikely. However, HslVU homologs have been identified recently in som...

BACKGROUND The Trypanosoma cruzi satellite DNA (satDNA) OligoC-TesT is a standardised PCR format for diagnosis of Chagas disease. The sensitivity of the test is lower for discrete typing unit (DTU) TcI than for TcII-VI and the test has not been evaluated in chronic Chagas disease patients. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We developed a new prototype of the OligoC-TesT based on kinetoplast DNA ...

Trypanosomes show an intriguing organization of their mitochondrial DNA into a catenated network, the kinetoplast DNA (kDNA). While more than 30 proteins involved in kDNA replication have been described, only few components of kDNA segregation machinery are currently known. Electron microscopy studies identified a high-order structure, the tripartite attachment complex (TAC), linking the basal ...

Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) of the protozoan Crithidia acanthocephali consists mainly of an association of approximately 27,000 covalently closed, 0.8-micron (1.58 X 10(6) daltons) circular molecules apparently held together in a particular structural configuration by topological interlocking. The sensitivities of circular kDNA molecules to the restriction endonucleases EcoRI and HindIII have been s...

Currently, evaluation of drug efficacy for Chagas disease remains a controversial issue with no consensus. In this work, we evaluated the parasitological efficacy of Nifurtimox treatment in 21 women with chronic Chagas disease from an area of endemicity in Chile who were treated according to current protocols. Under pre- and posttherapy conditions, blood (B) samples and xenodiagnosis (XD) sampl...

A kDNA PCR enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (kDNA PCR-ELISA) for the diagnosis of human visceral leishmaniasis (HVL) was developed. The detection limit of the reaction, precision measurements, and cut-off of the kDNA PCR-ELISA were defined in a proof-of-concept phase. A reference strain of Leishmania (Leishmania) infantum and a bank of 14 peripheral blood samples from immunocompetent patients ...