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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The apicomplexan parasites Babesia and Plasmodium are related, yet phylogenetically distinct haemoprotozoa that infect red blood cells and cause severe diseases of major human and veterinary importance. A variety of cellular and molecular interactions are pivotal in many aspects of the pathogenicity of these two parasites. Comparison of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that culminate in accumulation of parasitised red blood cells in the microvasculature of cattle infected with Babesia bovis (babesiosis) and humans infected with Plasmodium falciparum (falciparum malaria) is particularly instructive given the striking similarities in the pathophysiology of these two important medical and veterinary diseases. While such adhesive phenomena have been studied extensively in malaria, they have received relatively little attention in babesiosis. In this review, we summarise the findings of more than 25 years of research into cellular adhesive phenomena in malaria and speculate on how this body of work can now be applied to Babesia parasites. Such information is fundamental if we are to learn more about the biology of Babesia parasites, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which they cause infection and disease and how to develop novel therapeutic strategies or vaccines for both Babesia and malaria infections.
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PMID:Cellular adhesive phenomena in apicomplexan parasites of red blood cells. 1608 97

Babesiosis is caused by a haemotropic protozoal parasite of the genus Babesia, member of the phylum Apicomplexa and transmitted by the bite of an infected tick. There are many Babesia species affecting livestock, dogs, horses and rodents which are of economic significance. Infections can occur without producing symptoms, but babesiosis may also be severe and sometimes fatal caused by the intraerythrocytic parasite development. The disease can cause fever, fatigue and haemolytic anemia lasting from several days to several months. There are a number of effective babesiacides, but imidocarb dipropionate (which consistently clears the parasitaemia; often the only available drug on the market) and diminazene aceturate are the most widely used. Some Babesia spp. can infect humans, particularly Babesia microti and Babesia divergens, and human babesiosis is a significant emerging tick-borne zoonotic disease. Clinical manifestations differ markedly between European and North American diseases. In clinical cases, a combination of clindamycin and quinine is administered as the standard treatment, but also administration of atovaquone-azithromycin is successful. Supportive therapy such as intravenous fluids and blood transfusions are employed when necessary. More specific fast-acting new treatments for babesiosis have now to be developed. This should be facilitated by the knowledge of the Babesia spp. genome and increased interest for this malaria-like parasite.
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PMID:Chemotherapy against babesiosis. 1650 2

Babesia bigemina and Babesia bovis are intra-erythrocytic protozoan parasites transmitted by ticks to cattle in which they induce babesiosis, a disease that resembles human malaria. Anemia, caused by the destruction of non-infected erythrocytes, is a critical feature of the disease. Anti-erythrocyte antibodies could be one of the explanations for such destruction. These antibodies are found in the sera of dogs and mice respectively infected with B. gibsoni and B. rodhaini. However, data concerning the presence of anti-erythrocyte antibodies in the sera of infected cattle are not conclusive. In the present study, we made an attempt to detect anti-erythrocyte antibodies from the sera of cattle naturally infected with B. bigemina. Erythrocytes from a non-infected calf were used in ELISA reaction for the detection of antibodies from samples. Results confirmed the presence of anti-erythrocytes antibodies in higher amounts in the serum of infected cattle. In order to correlate this increment with the parasite, anti-erythrocyte antibodies from the sera from infected calves were purified, coupled to a Sepharose-4B column and than used for anti-idiotypic antibodies purification. These antibodies were found to react with the parasites, suggesting a correlation between both anti-parasite and anti-erythrocyte antibodies.
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PMID:Bovine babesiosis: anti-erythrocyte antibodies purification from the sera of naturally infected cattle. 1729 87

This review summarizes the origins of the insight that excess production of pro-inflammatory cytokines caused a constellation of changes that contribute to pathophysiology of disease. This connection was made following the original 1975 TNF (tumor necrosis factor) publication from New York describing how activated macrophages kill tumors. The study caught the eye of a group in London who were trying to understand how the same in vivo macrophage activation would protect mice against the erythrocytic protozoan parasites that cause malaria and babesiosis. Based on collaborative research between these two groups, it was argued in 1981 that TNF and related cytokines initiated events that caused pathology, as well as parasite death within red cells in these infectious diseases. This proved to be a key conceptual advance. It was also argued that the pathology of bacterial sepsis logically had TNF origins. Once TNF was cloned in 1985, allowing its specific analysis in serum and neutralization in vivo, the involvement of this cytokine in infectious disease pathology was pursued by a number of groups. Some researchers found that once "their" cytokine was cloned and sequenced, they had been unwittingly expanding knowledge on TNF for several years. By the late 1980s excess TNF production was proposed to be central to acute systemic viral diseases. This family of cytokines is now at the centre of investigations to understand the mechanisms of acute systemic viral diseases, including influenza and the hemorrhagic viral diseases. With its implication as the master regulator of other inflammatory cytokines in the synovial membrane, TNF has also become the major cytokine in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory disease. Its neutralization has proven to be a potent treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease.
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PMID:How TNF was recognized as a key mechanism of disease. 1749 63

Reported here is a rare case of babesiosis with pulmonary complications followed by a review of the literature. Babesiosis presents clinically as a malaria-like illness with fever, chills, headache, fatigue with lymphopenia, atypical lymphocytes, mildly or transiently elevated serum transaminases, thrombocytopenia, and increased lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. The diagnosis of babesiosis is based on identification of Babesia spp. on a peripheral blood smear. Babesiosis is usually mild in normal hosts, but it may be severe or even fatal in asplenic patients. Pulmonary manifestations are rare in babesiosis, but non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema (NCPE) is the most frequent manifestation. NCPE in babesiosis does not appear to be related to the degree of parasitemia or splenic function and its onset may be early or late. NCPE usually resolves rapidly with supportive treatment; it is rarely fatal. Clinicians should suspect NCPE in patients with babesiosis who acutely develop shortness of breath and have chest radiograph findings compatible with acute pulmonary edema without cardiomegaly or pleural effusions.
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PMID:Pulmonary complications of babesiosis: case report and literature review. 1755 89

Sequestration of parasite-infected red blood cells (RBCs) in the microvasculature is an important pathological feature of both bovine babesiosis caused by Babesia bovis and human malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum. Surprisingly, when compared with malaria, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie this abnormal circulatory behaviour for RBCs infected with B. bovis have been relatively ignored. Here, we present some novel insights into the adhesive and mechanical changes that occur in B. bovis-infected bovine RBCs and compare them with the alterations that occur in human RBCs infected with P. falciparum. After infection with B. bovis, bovine RBCs become rigid and adhere to vascular endothelial cells under conditions of physiologically relevant flow. These alterations are accompanied by the appearance of ridge-like structures on the RBC surface that are analogous, but morphologically and biochemically different, to the knob-like structures on the surface of human RBCs infected with P. falciparum. Importantly, albeit for a limited number of parasite lines examined here, the extent of these cellular and rheological changes appear to be related to parasite virulence. Future investigations to identify the precise molecular composition of ridges and the proteins that mediate adhesion will provide important insight into the pathogenesis of both babesiosis and malaria.
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PMID:New insights into the altered adhesive and mechanical properties of red blood cells parasitized by Babesia bovis. 1764 Feb 78

The pathobiology of malaria has been extensively studied in humans but many questions remain, especially regarding fulminant disease associated with Plasmodium falciparum infection. Babesiosis, recognized since biblical times as an important disease of livestock and more recently as an emerging health problem in humans, is caused by related intraerythrocytic protozoa with a similar pathogenesis and clinical course. Recent studies of cytokine activation and erythrocyte cytoadherence in babesiosis and malaria have exploited these similarities to provide new insights into malaria pathobiology. Continued investigation of similarities and differences in the pathogenesis of babesiosis and malaria should lead to additional fundamental insights for both conditions.
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PMID:Shared features in the pathobiology of babesiosis and malaria. 1798 44

The present review deals with the representative research papers on human parasites and parasitic diseases in China over the past hundred years (1871-2006). As the views focused on the development of the medical parasitology, the historical background and progressive characters in the period of fermentation, origination, and expansion have been discussed. The check list of the first cases of human parasitic diseases reported in China during 1871-2006 contained 128 species of parasitic pathogens, and among them 38 species were the newly revisional records. The citation from Faust's paper (1923) proved that previous record of "the first case of Eurytrema pancreaticum from Hongkong" was an absurdly mistake. The human infections of Diphyllobothrium latum, Toxocara canis, and Triodontophorus minor discovered by Lin (1924) from Beijing were the first records in the country. A doubtful malaria case reported from Chongqing by Hung (1944) should be revised as the first case of babesiosis in China. The above-presented examples suggest that the truthful record of parasitic pathogens is an important base for the discovery history of parasitic diseases. With comments on the research progress of human parasitic diseases in different historical stages, it seems that the trends of medical parasitology development in China have been synchronous with the research activities in the area.
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PMID:[Historical review on the development of medical parasitology in China during the years of 1871-2006]. 1803 94

Significant progress has been made in reducing the risk of pathogen transmission to transfusion recipients. Nonetheless, there remains a continuing risk of transmission of viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and prions to recipients. These include many of the viruses for which specific screening tests exist as well as pathogens for which testing is currently not being done, including various species of bacteria, babesiosis, variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, hepatitis A virus, human herpes virus 8, chikungunya virus, Chagas disease, and malaria. Pathogen inactivation (PI) technologies potentially provide an additional way to protect the blood supply from emerging agents and also provide additional protection against both known and as-yet-unidentified agents. However, the impact of PI on product quality and recipient safety remains to be determined. The purpose of this consensus conference was to bring together international experts in an effort to consider the following issues with respect to PI: implementation criteria; licensing requirements; blood service and clinical issues; risk management issues; cost-benefit impact; and research requirements. These proceedings are provided to make available to the transfusion medicine community the considerable amount of important information presented at this consensus conference.
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PMID:Proceedings of a Consensus Conference: pathogen inactivation-making decisions about new technologies. 1806 90

Babesiosis is an emerging tick borne zoonotic disease caused by intraerythrocytic parasites of the genus Babesia. Babesiosis is one of the most common infections of free-living animals worldwide but is perhaps most prevalent in rodents, carnivores, and cattle. This fact increases the concern about the emerging zoonosis. Like the malaria agent Plasmodium, the parasite Babesia attacks and damages the host's red cells. Babesia microti and Babesia divergens cause human infections. In the USA, an endemic region of this infection, most human cases are due to Babesia microti. In Europe, babesiosis is considerably rare and is caused by Babesia divergens, with splenectomized patients being at highest risk. The spectrum of disease is broad, ranging from an apparently silent infection to a fulminant, malaria-like disease. Symptoms include fever, chills and icterus. The treatment of choice is clindamycin and quinine. The laboratory diagnosis is based on direct detection of the parasite from blood smears. Due to increasing international travel, even relatively uncommon parasitic infections can be found in the Czech Republic and babesiosis is just one of them.
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PMID:[Babesiosis, a little known zoonosis]. 1807 99


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