In an attempt to find a serological marker for the diagnosis of chronic digestive forms of Chagas' disease, we compared amastigote and trypomastigote antigens obtained from immunosuppressed mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi (Y strain) with conventional epimastigote antigens to search for immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies. A total of 255 serum samples from patients with acute and chronic (ind...

Leishmania, a protozoan parasite, lives and multiplies as amastigote within macrophages. It is proposed that the macrophage expressed CD40 interacts with CD40 ligand on T cells to induce IFN-gamma, a Th1-type cytokine that restricts the amastigote growth. Here, we demonstrate that CD40 cross-linking early after infection resulted in inducible nitric oxide synthetase type-2 (iNOS2) induction and...

The ability to screen compounds in a high-throughput manner is essential in the process of small molecule drug discovery. Critical to the success of screening strategies is the proper design of the assay, often implying a compromise between ease/speed and a biologically relevant setting. Leishmaniasis is a major neglected disease with limited therapeutic options. In order to streamline efforts ...

Post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) is a dermal complication, a sequel to kala-azar. Diagnosis of PKDL presents a challenge due to the low parasite burden in the lesions. The direct agglutination test (DAT) based on promastigote and amastigote antigens of Leishmania donovani of indigenous isolates was developed to diagnose PKDL, and the results were compared with those of the rk39 strip ...

Background The aim of present study was to evaluate antileishmanial effects of Lavandula angustifolia (L. angustifolia) and Rosmarinus officinalis (R. officinalis) medicinal plants essential oils and nano-emulsions on Leishmania major (L. major). Methods The present study was performed in Leishmaniasis Reference Lab at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran during 2016-2017. The IC50...

Epimastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi (the etiologic agent of Chagas disease) internalize and store extracellular macromolecules in lysosome-related organelles (LROs) called reservosomes, which are positive for the cysteine protease cruzipain. Despite the importance of endocytosis for cell proliferation, macromolecule internalization remains poorly understood in the most clinically relevant p...

The guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) is a natural reservoir for Trypanosoma cruzi but has seldom been used as an experimental infection model. We developed a guinea pig infection model for acute and chronic Chagas disease. Seventy-two guinea pigs were inoculated intradermally with 10(4) trypomastigotes of T. cruzi strain Y (experimental group); 18 guinea pigs were used as control group. Eight anima...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES The severe toxicity, exorbitant cost and emerging resistance of Leishmania species against most of the currently used drugs underscores the urgent need for the alternative drugs. The present study evaluates in vitro anti-leishmanial activity of Plumeria bicolor and its isolated compounds. METHODS The in vitro anti-parasitic activity of chloroform extract of Plumeria bi...

background: molecular diversity of leishmania major and its morphological changes have become a controversial issue among researchers. some aspects of polymorphic shapes of amastigotes in clinical manifestations along with molecular variation were evaluated among suspected patients of some exceptional zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis locations in northern khuzestan, southwestern iran. methods: ...