Chagas disease.

Chagas disease is the clinical condition triggered by infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. The infection is transmitted by triatomine insects while blood feeding on a human host. Field studies predict that one third of an estimated 18 million T cruzi-infected humans in Latin America will die of Chagas disease.

Evidence of rickettsial spotted fever and ehrlichial infections in a subtropical territory of Jujuy, Argentina.

Between November 1993 and March 1994, a cluster 6 pediatric patients with acute febrile illnesses associated with rashes was identified in Jujuy Province, Argentina. Immunohistochemical staining of tissues confirmed spotted fever group rickettsial infection in a patient with fatal disease, and testing of serum of a patient convalescing from the illness by using an indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) demonstrated antibodies reactive with spotted fever group rickettsiae. A serosurvey was conducted among 16 households in proximity to the index case.

Poorly differentiated insular thyroid carcinoma. A case report with identification of intact insulae with fine needle aspiration biopsy.

Background: Subsequent to the publication of a report in 1984 entitled "Poorly Differentiated ("Insular") Carcinoma: A Reinterpretation of Langhans "wuchernde Struma," poorly differentiated insular thyroid carcinoma (PDITC) has become recognized as a distinct thyroid neoplasm. It is classified morphologically and biologically as an intermediate entity between well-differentiated (papillary and follicular) and undifferentiated (anaplastic) thyroid carcinomas. Only a few publications have addressed the findings with fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB).

A novel receptor mediated ATP transport system regulated by tyrosine and serine/threonine phosphokinases in Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigotes.

Trypanosoma cruzi has a plasma membrane ATP transport system that may consist of an exterior receptor domain (ATP-R) and an interior domain regulated by tyrosine and serine/threonine kinases. The addition of exogenous ATP to freely swimming trypomastigotes resulted in a receptor-mediated inward movement of the nucleotide, and the system obeyed mass action law (Km, 9.42 microM and Vmax, 77.

Plasma membrane ATP receptors in Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigotes.

Trypomastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi were impermeable to exogenous radiolabeled ATP for up to 2 h at 4 degrees C. Radioligand binding assays in the cold showed that trypomastigotes had two populations of saturable ATP receptors (ATP-Rs) and the radioligand interaction was reversed by nonlabeled ATP in concentration-dependent assays. The Kds of high- and low-affinity ATP-Rs were 7.