Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0085437 (bacterial meningitis)
 4,038 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Mx proteins are a group of interferon-induced GTPases whose expression has been demonstrated in a number of human viral infections and in some idiopathic inflammatory diseases. In this study, the expression of Mx protein was evaluated in known viral, nonviral, and idiopathic encephalitides in the dog via immunohistochemistry using an antibody against human MxA. All 12 cases of confirmed viral encephalitis, including 7 cases of canine distemper, 4 cases of canine herpesvirus, and 1 case of rabies, were Mx positive. In canine distemper cases, staining was particularly strong and a variety of cell types were positive, including astrocytes, macrophages/microglia, and neurons. Immunoreactivity for Mx protein was evident in a few cases of nonviral infectious encephalitis, including neosporosis (1/1), Chagas disease (2/3), aspergillosis (1/2), and encephalitozoonosis (1/1). Consistent staining was observed in most cases of idiopathic encephalitis, including granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis (7/7), necrotizing meningoencephalitis of pug dogs (6/7), and necrotizing encephalitis of the Yorkshire Terrier (3/3) and Maltese (1/1) breeds. Mx staining was negative in 5 normal dog brains; 3 cases of cryptococcosis; and single cases of blastomycosis, protothecosis, and bacterial meningitis.
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PMID:Immunohistochemical evaluation of mx protein expression in canine encephalitides. 1709 55

The need for reliable, fast diagnostics is closely linked to the need for safe, effective treatment of the so-called "neglected" diseases. The list of diseases with no field-adapted diagnostic tools includes leishmaniasis, shigella, typhoid, and bacterial meningitis. Leishmaniasis, in particular, is a parasitic disease caused by Leishmania spp. transmitted by infected phlebotomine sandfly, which remains a public health concern in developing countries with ca. 12 million people infected and 350 million at risk of infection. Despite several attempts, methods for diagnosis are still noneffective, especially with regard to specificity due to false positives with Chagas' disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi . Accepted golden standards for detecting leishmaniasis involve isolation of parasites either microscopically, or by culture, and in both methods specimens are obtained by invasive means. Here, we show that efficient distinction between cutaneous leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease can be obtained with a low-cost biosensor system made with nanostructured films containing specific Leishmania amazonensis and T. cruzi antigens and employing impedance spectroscopy as the detection method. This unprecedented selectivity was afforded by antigen-antibody molecular recognition processes inherent in the detection with the immobilized antigens, and by statistically correlating the electrical impedance data, which allowed distinction between real samples that tested positive for Chagas' disease and leishmaniasis. Distinction could be made of blood serum samples containing 10(-5) mg/mL of the antibody solution in a few minutes. The methods used here are generic and can be extended to any type of biosensor, which is important for an effective diagnosis of many other diseases.
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PMID:Biosensors for efficient diagnosis of leishmaniasis: innovations in bioanalytics for a neglected disease. 2104 37