A Virtual Reality Game to Change Sun Protection Behavior and Prevent Cancer: User-Centered Design Approach.

Background: Public health sun safety campaigns introduced during the 1980s have successfully reduced skin cancer rates in Australia. Despite this success, high rates of sunburn continue to be reported by youth and young adults. As such, new strategies to reinforce sun protection approaches in this demographic are needed.

Acylation in trypanosomatids: an essential process and potential drug target.

Fatty acylation--the addition of fatty acid moieties such as myristate and palmitate to proteins--is essential for the survival, growth, and infectivity of the trypanosomatids: Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi, and Leishmania. Myristoylation and palmitoylation are critical for parasite growth, targeting and localization, and the intrinsic function of some proteins. The trypanosomatids possess a single N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) and multiple palmitoyl acyltransferases, and these enzymes and their protein targets are only now being characterized.

Sink or swim: lipid rafts in parasite pathogenesis.

Lipid rafts, sterol- and sphingolipid-rich membrane microdomains, have been extensively studied in mammalian cells. Recently, lipid rafts have been shown to control virulence in a variety of parasites including Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia intestinalis, Leishmania spp., Plasmodium spp.

Exposure to host ligands correlates with colocalization of Gal/GalNAc lectin subunits in lipid rafts and phosphatidylinositol (4,5)-bisphosphate signaling in Entamoeba histolytica.

Entamoeba histolytica is an intestinal parasite that causes dysentery and liver abscess. Parasite cell surface receptors, such as the Gal/GalNAc lectin, facilitate attachment to host cells and extracellular matrix. The Gal/GalNAc lectin binds to galactose or N-acetylgalactosamine residues on host components and is composed of heavy (Hgl), intermediate (Igl), and light (Lgl) subunits.