An in vivo duck hepatitis B virus model recapitulates key aspects of nucleic acid polymer treatment outcomes in chronic hepatitis B patients.

Nucleic acid polymers (NAPs) are an attractive treatment modality for chronic hepatitis B (CHB), with REP2139 and REP2165 having shown efficacy in CHB patients. A subset of patients achieve functional cure, whereas the others exhibit a moderate response or are non-responders. NAP efficacy has been difficult to recapitulate in animal models, with the duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) model showing some promise but remaining underexplored for NAP efficacy testing.

Epidemiological Dynamics of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in the Horn of Africa: The Role of Virus Diversity and Animal Movement.

The Horn of Africa is a large area of arid and semi-arid land, holding about 10% of the global and 40% of the entire African livestock population. The region's livestock production system is mainly extensive and pastoralist. It faces countless problems, such as a shortage of pastures and watering points, poor access to veterinary services, and multiple endemic diseases like foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

Improving the yield of recalcitrant Nanobodies® by simple modifications to the standard protocol.

Nanobodies are single-domain antibody constructs derived from the variable regions of heavy chain only (VH) camelid IgGs. Their small size and single gene format make them amenable to various molecular biology applications that require a protein affinity-based approach. These features, in addition to their high solubility, allows their periplasmic expression, extraction and purification in E.

The Trypanosomal Transferrin Receptor of Trypanosoma Brucei-A Review.

Iron is an essential element for life. Its uptake and utility requires a careful balancing with its toxic capacity, with mammals evolving a safe and bio-viable means of its transport and storage. This transport and storage is also utilized as part of the iron-sequestration arsenal employed by the mammalian hosts' 'nutritional immunity' against parasites.

KILchip v1.0: A Novel Merozoite Protein Microarray to Facilitate Malaria Vaccine Candidate Prioritization.

Passive transfer studies in humans clearly demonstrated the protective role of IgG antibodies against malaria. Identifying the precise parasite antigens that mediate immunity is essential for vaccine design, but has proved difficult. Completion of the genome revealed thousands of potential vaccine candidates, but a significant bottleneck remains in their validation and prioritization for further evaluation in clinical trials.

Virulence and pathogenicity of three stabilates in a Swiss white mouse model.

Background: A key objective in basic research on human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is developing a cheap and reliable experimental model of the disease for use in pathogenesis and drug studies.

Objective: With a view to improving current models, a study was undertaken to characterise the virulence and pathogenicity of three stabilates, labelled as International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)-2918, ILRI-3953, and Institute of Primate Research (IPR)-001, infected into Swiss white mice.

Methods: Swiss white mice were infected intraperitoneally with trypanosomes and observed for parasitaemia using wet blood smears obtained by tail snipping.

Influence of trypanocidal therapy on the haematology of vervet monkeys experimentally infected with Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense.

The aim of this study was to characterise the sequential haematological changes in vervet monkeys infected with Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and subsequently treated with sub-curative diminazene aceturate (DA) and curative melarsoprol (MelB) trypanocidal drugs. Fourteen vervet monkeys, on a serial timed-kill pathogenesis study, were infected intravenously with 10(4) trypanosomes of a stabilate T. b.