BACKGROUND Toxoplasma gondii can infect all warm-blooded animals including humans. Infection with T. gondii is probably the leading cause of posterior uveitis in humans and the most comment route of transmission is raw and undercooked meat from infected animals. T. gondii calcium-dependent protein kinase 1 (TgCDPK1) plays a critical role in direct parasite motility, host-cell invasion, and egre...

BACKGROUND Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite which can infect almost all mammalian animals, leading to toxoplasmosis. T. gondii rhoptry protein 38 (TgROP38) is an active rhoptry protein kinase which is involved in the inhibitory effect on host cell transcription by down-regulating the MAPK signaling track. METHODS TgROP38 gene was amplified and inserted into eukaryotic v...

Orally delivered DNA vaccines against duck enteritis virus (DEV) were developed using live attenuated Salmonella typhimurium (SL7207) as a carrier and Escherichia coli heat labile enterotoxin B subunit (LTB) as a mucosal adjuvant. DNA vaccine plasmids pVAX-UL24 and pVAX-LTB-UL24 were constructed and transformed into attenuated Salmonella typhimurium SL7207 resulting SL7207 (pVAX-UL24) and SL720...

Mucosal immunity is deemed crucial to control sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Herein we report the efficacy of a mucosal HIV vaccine strategy comprising intranasal (IN) vaccination with a cocktail of live recombinant human rhinoviruses (HRVs) encoding overlapping fragments of HIV Gag and full length Tat (rHRV-Gag/Tat) followed by intradermal (ID) vaccination with DNA ...

BACKGROUND During myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), a large amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is produced. In particular, overproduction of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is considered to be a main cause of I/R-mediated tissue damage. We generated novel H2O2-responsive antioxidant polymer nanoparticles (PVAX and HPOX) that are able to target the site of ROS overproduction and attenuate the...

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 strains are major human food-borne pathogens, responsible for bloody diarrhea and hemolytic-uremic syndrome worldwide. Thus far, there is no vaccine for humans against EHEC infections. In this study, a comparative genomics analysis was performed to identify EHEC-specific antigens useful as potential vaccines. The genes present in both EHEC EDL93...

BACKGROUND Toxoplasma gondii can infect almost all warm-blood animals including human beings. The plant-like calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) harbored by T. gondii are involved in gliding motility, cell invasion, egress and some other developmental processes, and so have been implicated as important virulence factors. METHODS In the present study, we constructed a DNA vaccine express...

The main culprit in the pathogenesis of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), the most abundant form of ROS produced during I/R, causes inflammation, apoptosis and subsequent tissue damages. Here, we report H2O2-responsive antioxidant nanoparticles formulated from copolyoxalate containing vanillyl alcohol (VA) (PVAX) ...

Ultrasonography is a reliable diagnostic modality for muscle and tendon injuries, but it has been challenging to find right diagnosis of minor musculoskeletal injuries by conventional ultrasonographic imaging. A large amount of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) are known to be generated during tissue damages such as mechanical injury and therefore H2O2 holds great potential as a diagnostic and therapeut...

Due to the poor immunogenicity of subunit protein antigens, there is a need to use adjuvants in order to generate effective immune responses. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is one of the best characterized pro-angiogenic cytokine and is a candidate target for anticancer therapy. We used truncated bFGF (tbFGF) combined with engineered pVAX-n...