Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0042961 (volvulus)
 4,305 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Isozyme analysis was carried out on Onchocerca volvulus worms collected from Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Sudan to see whether this technique could detect differences between forest and savannah populations of this parasite. A total of 243 forest and 189 savannah individual female worms were electrophoresed and stained for seven enzymes. Four showed some polymorphism, LDH, MDH, PGM and MPI and the other three, GAPDH, PEP and GPI were invariant. Statistical analysis of the results showed that the relative proportions of genotypes from within the different countries conformed to Hardy-Weinberg expectations. Pairwise comparisons of allele frequencies between countries showed that populations from Liberia and Ivory Coast had a very similar composition; there was some divergence between all the other pairs of populations and the genetic distance was calculated to summarize the degree of divergence. The number of loci examined was small and the genetic distances were within the range expected for separate geographical populations of the same species. The usefulness of this technique in worm identification is discussed.
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PMID:Onchocerca volvulus: enzyme polymorphism in relation to the differentiation of forest and savannah strains of this parasite. 302 65

River blindness, caused by the filarial parasite Onchocerca volvulus, is a major socio-economic and public health problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. In January 2015, The Onchocerciasis Vaccine for Africa (TOVA) Initiative has been launched with the aim of providing new tools to complement mass drug administration (MDA) of ivermectin, thereby promoting elimination of onchocerciasis in Africa. In this context we here present Onchocerca volvulus glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (Ov-GAPDH) as a possible DNA vaccine candidate. We report that in a laboratory model for filariasis, immunization with Ov-GAPDH led to a significant reduction of adult worm load and microfilaraemia in BALB/c mice after challenge infection with the filarial parasite Litomosoides sigmodontis. Mice were either vaccinated with Ov-GAPDH.DNA plasmid (Ov-pGAPDH.DNA) alone or in combination with recombinantly expressed Ov-GAPDH protein (Ov-rGAPDH). During the following challenge infection of immunized and control mice with L. sigmodontis, those formulations which included the DNA plasmid, led to a significant reduction of adult worm loads (up to 57% median reduction) and microfilaraemia (up to 94% reduction) in immunized animals. In a further experiment, immunization with a mixture of four overlapping, synthetic Ov-GAPDH peptides (Ov-GAPDHpept), with alum as adjuvant, did not significantly reduce worm loads. Our results indicate that DNA vaccination with Ov-GAPDH has protective potential against filarial challenge infection in the mouse model. This suggests a transfer of the approach into the cattle Onchocerca ochengi model, where it is possible to investigate the effects of this vaccination in the context of a natural host-parasite relationship.
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PMID:DNA vaccine encoding the moonlighting protein Onchocerca volvulus glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (Ov-GAPDH) leads to partial protection in a mouse model of human filariasis. 2632 Apr 19