Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) is nowadays considered a pioneer in a number of medical fields, and in the course of time his role in the establishment and development of disciplines such as histology, immunology, oncology and haematology has been acknowledged. Aim of this historical note is to illustrate, in the area of chemotherapy, the special importance of this brilliant scientist whose 150th anniversary of birth occurred in 2004. Already as a medical student, Ehrlich was obsessed by structural organic chemistry and dyes, and, continually studying these issues, he elaborated his theory regarding the discovery of a "magic bullet", able to specifically destroy tumour cells and micro-organisms. In practice he applied methylene blue to the treatment of malaria patients, following his intuition that such a dye could destroy parasites. However, his culminating achievements in the chemotherapic field, reached even at the expense of his health, were the concept of the one-dose treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection, and the creation of arsphenamine (compound 606, or Salvarsan), the first really effective compound in controlling human syphilis. Within the many and various contributions of Ehrlich to the development of experimental and clinical medicine, a special mention of his experimental studies and clinical applications in the area of chemotherapy is essential, since his achievements in this biomedical area remain a paramount legacy in the history of the therapy of infections.
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PMID:The contributions of Paul Ehrlich to infectious disease. 1656

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is aetiologically linked to a wide range of human tumours. Some arise as accidents of the virus' lifestyle in its natural niche, the B lymphoid system; these include B-lymphoproliferative disease of the immunocompromised, Hodgkin Lymphoma, Burkitt Lymphoma and particular forms of diffuse large B cell lymphoma. Interestingly, HIV infection increases the incidence of each of these B cell malignancies, though by different degrees and for different reasons. Other EBV-associated tumours arise through rare viral entry into unnatural target tissues; these include all cases of nasal T/NK cell lymphoma and of undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma plus a small but significant subset of gastric carcinomas, a tumour type more generally associated with chronic Helicobacter pylori infection. Understanding EBV's involvement in the pathogenesis of these different malignancies is an important long-term goal. This article focuses on two overlapping, but relatively neglected, areas of research that could contribute to that goal. The first addresses the mechanisms whereby coincident infections with other pathogens increase the risk of EBV-positive malignancies, and takes as its paradigm the actions of holoendemic malaria and HIV infections as co-factors in Burkitt lymphomagenesis. The second widens the argument to include both infectious and non-infectious sources of chronic inflammation in the pathogenesis of EBV-positive tumours such as T/NK cell lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and gastric carcinoma.
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PMID:Co-infections, inflammation and oncogenesis: future directions for EBV research. 2475 97

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are evolutionary conserved, small non-coding RNA with size ranging from 19 to 24 nucleotides. They endogenously regulate the gene expression at the post transcriptional level either through translation repression or mRNA degradation. MiRNAs have shown the potential to be used as a biomarker for the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of infectious diseases. Many miRNAs have shown significantly altered expression during infection. The altered expression of miRNA level in an infected human can be identified by the use of advanced diagnostic tools. In this review, we have highlighted the use of miRNA as an emerging tool for the identification of the human infectious disease. Till date, several miRNAs have been reported as a molecular biomarker in infectious diseases, such as miRNA-150 and miRNA-146b-5p in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); miRNA-122, miRNA-21, and miRNA-34a in hepatitis; miRNA-361-5p and miRNA-29c in tuberculosis; miRNA-16 and miRNA-451 in malaria and miRNA-181 in Helicobacter pylori infection. The diagnosis of infection with the help of a biomarker is a non-invasive tool that has shown to have a key role in early diagnosis of infection. The discovery of circulating miRNA in the blood of infected patients has the potential to become a powerful non-invasive biomarker in coming future.
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PMID:Circulating MicroRNAs: Potential and Emerging Biomarkers for Diagnosis of Human Infectious Diseases. 2757 20