| performance of a histidine-rich protein 2 rapid diagnostic test, paracheck pf(r), for detection of malaria infections in ugandan pregnant women. | abstract. improved laboratory diagnosis is critical to reduce the burden of malaria in pregnancy. peripheral blood smears appear less sensitive than plasmodium falciparum histidine-rich protein 2-based rapid diagnostic tests (rdts) for placental malaria infections in studies conducted at delivery. in this study, 81 women in uganda in the second or third trimester of pregnancy were followed-up until delivery. at each visit, peripheral blood was tested by blood smear, rdt, and nested species-speci ... | 2012 | 22232456 |
| in silico characterization of atypical kinase, pfd0975w from plasmodium kinome: a suitable target for drug discovery. | rio-2 kinase is known to regulate ribosome biogenesis and other cell cycle events. the 3-d model of atp bound and an unbound form of pfd0975w was generated using afrio-2 crystal structure 1tqi, 1zao as template employing modeller9v7 program. structural characterization identified n-terminal winged helix domain (1-84), c-terminal kinase domain (148-275) and presence of other critical residues known for atp binding and kinase activity. using q-site and pocket finder, a number of well defined subst ... | 2012 | 22233458 |
| high content live cell imaging for the discovery of new antimalarial marine natural products. | abstract: background: the human malaria parasite remains a burden in developing nations. it is responsible for up to one million deaths a year, a number that could rise due to increasing multi-drug resistance to all antimalarial drugs currently available. therefore, there is an urgent need for the discovery of new drug therapies. recently, our laboratory developed a simple one-step fluorescence-based live cell-imaging assay to integrate the complex biology of the human malaria parasite into dru ... | 2012 | 22214291 |
| interactome mapping in malaria parasites: challenges and opportunities. | nearly two-thirds of the proteins encoded by plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most deadly form of malaria, are annotated as "hypothetical." the yeast two-hybrid assay, which requires no prior knowledge about the target protein, has great potential to provide functional information about these uncharacterized proteins. however, p. falciparum yeast two-hybrid screens are hampered by the poor expression of p. falciparum genes in yeast. au-rich sequences in nascent p. falciparum t ... | 2012 | 22218857 |
| a viral vectored prime-boost immunization regime targeting the malaria pfs25 antigen induces transmission-blocking activity. | the ookinete surface protein pfs25 is a macrogamete-to-ookinete/ookinete stage antigen of plasmodium falciparum, capable of exerting high-level anti-malarial transmission-blocking activity following immunization with recombinant protein-in-adjuvant formulations. here, this antigen was expressed in recombinant chimpanzee adenovirus 63 (chad63), human adenovirus serotype 5 (adhu5) and modified vaccinia virus ankara (mva) viral vectored vaccines. two immunizations were administered to mice in a het ... | 2011 | 22216279 |
| malaria control in an amazon municipality. | this study aimed to evaluate the organization of malaria control actions in the indigenous population of the municipality of são gabriel da cachoeira, amazonas, am, brazil, from 2003 to 2007. this is an ecological study to evaluate the impact of control measures. statistical analysis of the indicators revealed that the number of cases showed an increasing trend, with the highest numbers occurring in the rural areas. the same trend was observed for the annual parasite index (api), however the hig ... | 2011 | 22249662 |
| linker-based hemisuccinate derivatives of artemisinin: synthesis and antimalarial assessment against multidrug-resistant plasmodium yoelii nigeriensis in mice (1). | artesunic acid 5, the hemisuccinate derivative of dihydroartemisinin 2, is the only clinically useful water-soluble derivative of artemisinin 1. however, being a lactol ester, it is rapidly hydrolyzed back to dihydroartemisinin in aqueous alkaline solution, a reaction that seriously limits its utility. a new series of potentially more stable linker-based hemisuccinate derivatives 12a-i and 14a-c have been prepared. the process involved acid-catalyzed reaction of dihydroartemisinin with various d ... | 2012 | 22216834 |
| 15-deoxyspergualin hinders physical interaction between basic residues of transit peptide in pfenr and hsp70-1. | the apicoplast of plasmodium harbors several metabolic pathways. the enzymes required to perform these reactions are all nuclearly encoded and apicoplast targeted (neat) proteins. plasmodium falciparum enoyl-acp reductase (pfenr) is one such neat protein. the neat proteins have a transit peptide which is required for crossing the membranes of apicoplast. we studied the importance of basic residues like arginine and lysine within the transit peptide. previous studies have suggested that all basic ... | 2012 | 22223537 |
| optimizing illumina next-generation sequencing library preparation for extremely at-biased genomes. | abstract: background: massively parallel sequencing technology is revolutionizing approaches to genomic and genetic research. since its advent, the scale and efficiency of next-generation sequencing (ngs) has rapidly improved. in spite of this success, sequencing genomes or genomic regions with extremely biased base composition is still a great challenge to the currently available ngs platforms. the genomes of some important pathogenic organisms like plasmodium falciparum (high at content) and ... | 2012 | 22214261 |
| case report and clinical databased research study on malaria. | malaria is endemic in gujarat and the adjoining areas like many other parts of the india. depending upon the environmental conditions different species of malarial parasite are found in different areas. the present study was planned to see the pattern of malarial infection diagnosed at b.j. desai trust hospital, kheda, gujarat | 2010 | 22247827 |
| plasmodium chabaudi as induces pregnancy loss in association with systemic pro-inflammatory immune responses in a/j and c57bl/6 mice. | the molecular mechanisms that underlie poor birth outcomes in malaria during pregnancy remain poorly defined. to assess the role of host immune responses, mice known to respond differentially to plasmodium chabaudi as infection were studied. following infection at day 0 of pregnancy, a/j mice developed significantly higher parasitemia than c57bl/6 (b6) mice and succumbed to infection. both strains had evidence of parasite accumulation in the placenta at mid-gestation and aborted, with significan ... | 2012 | 22251385 |
| antiplasmodial decarboxyportentol acetate and 3,4-dehydrotheaspirone from laumoniera bruceadelpha. | a new spiro heterocycle, decarboxyportentol acetate (1) was isolated from the barks of laumoniera bruceadelpha nooteboom (simaroubaceae), together with 3,4-dehydrotheaspirone (2), and their structures were elucidated by 2d nmr analysis. 3,4-dehydrotheaspirone (2) showed potent antiplasmodial activity against plasmodium falciparum 3d7. | 2012 | 22213131 |
| structure of a potential antimalarial drug target revealed{diamondsuit}: structure and reaction mechanism of phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase from malaria parasite plasmodium falciparum. antiparasitic drug target. | | 2012 | 22228903 |
| identification of optimal epitopes for plasmodium falciparum rapid diagnostic tests that target histidine-rich proteins 2 and 3. | rapid diagnostic tests (rdts) represent important tools to diagnose malaria infection. to improve understanding of the variable performance of rdts that detect the major target in plasmodium falciparum, namely histidine rich protein 2 (hrp2), and to inform the design of better tests we undertook detailed mapping of the epitopes recognized by eight hrp-specific monoclonal antibodies (mabs). to investigate for geographic skewing of this polymorphic protein we analysed the distribution of these epi ... | 2012 | 22259210 |
| metabolism of cryptolepine and 2-fluorocryptolepine by aldehyde oxidase. | objectives to investigate the metabolism of cryptolepine and some cryptolepine analogues by aldehyde oxidase, and to assess the implications of the results on the potential of cryptolepine analogues as antimalarial agents. methods the products resulting from the oxidation of cryptolepine and 2-fluorocryptolepine by a rabbit liver preparation of aldehyde oxidase were isolated and identified using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques. the antiplasmodial activity of cryptolepine-11-one wa ... | 2012 | 22221099 |
| changes related to age in natural and acquired systemic self-igg responses in malaria. | background. absence of acquired protective immunity in endemic areas children leads to higher susceptibility to severe malaria. to investigate the involvement of regulatory process related to self-reactivity, we evaluated potent changes in auto-antibody reactivity profiles in children and older subjects living in malaria-endemic zones comparatively to none-exposed healthy controls. methods. analysis of igg self-reactive footprints was performed using western blotting against healthy brain antige ... | 2011 | 22253622 |
| loop-mediated isothermal amplification (lamp): early detection of toxoplasma gondii infection in mice. | abstract: background: toxoplasmosis is a widespread zoonotic parasitic disease that occurs in both animals and humans. traditional molecular assays are often difficult to perform, especially for the early diagnosis of toxoplasma gondii infections. here, we established a novel loop-mediated isothermal amplification targeting the 529 bp repeat element (529 bp-lamp) to detect t. gondii dna in blood samples of experimental mice infected with tachyzoites of the rh strain. findings: the assay was pe ... | 2012 | 22214421 |
| t-cell responses to the dblα-tag, a short semi-conserved region of the plasmodium falciparum membrane erythrocyte protein 1. | the plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (pfemp1) is a variant surface antigen expressed on mature forms of infected erythrocytes. it is considered an important target of naturally acquired immunity. despite its extreme sequence heterogeneity, variants of pfemp1 can be stratified into distinct groups. group a pfemp1 have been independently associated with low host immunity and severe disease in several studies and are now of potential interest as vaccine candidates. although anti ... | 2012 | 22272280 |