High prevalence of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses in blood donors during a dengue outbreak and an endemic period in Colombia.

Objective: Arboviruses pose a challenge in ensuring the supply of pathogen-free blood components because they are not routinely screened in blood banks, and blood components from infected asymptomatic donors could be transfused. This study aimed to detect and characterize arboviral infections in Colombian blood donors.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, the prevalence of dengue (DENV), Zika (ZIKV), and chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses and co-infections of blood donors were compared between an epidemic period (November 2019-February 2020,  = 462) and an endemic period (November 2021-August 2022,  = 1,119).

Deubiquitinating Enzyme Inhibitors Block Chikungunya Virus Replication.

Ubiquitination and deubiquitination processes are widely involved in modulating the function, activity, localization, and stability of multiple cellular proteins regulating almost every aspect of cellular function. Several virus families have been shown to exploit the cellular ubiquitin-conjugating system to achieve a productive infection: enter the cell, promote genome replication, or assemble and release viral progeny. In this study, we analyzed the role of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) during chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection.

Performance of Invasive Mode in Different Heated Humidification Systems With High-Flow Nasal Cannula.

Background: Oxygen therapy via high-flow nasal cannula generates physiologic changes that impact ventilatory variables of patients. However, we know that there are detrimental effects on airway mucosa related to inhalation of gases. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance in terms of absolute humidity, relative humidity, and temperature of different brands of heated humidifiers and circuits in the invasive mode during the use of high-flow oxygen therapy in flows between 30 and 100 L/min.

Molecular and biological characterization of an Asian-American isolate of Chikungunya virus.

Chikungunya virus is an arthropod-transmitted virus that causes chikungunya fever, a disease characterized by severe muscle and joint pain. In 2013, the virus was introduced to the Americas and caused approximately 2.7 million cases of infection during the subsequent two years.

Activity of the Giardia intestinalis proteasome during encystation and its connection with the expression of the cyst wall protein 1 (CWP1).

Giardia is a parasite whose life cycle is composed of two stages: replicative trophozoites, responsible for the symptoms of the disease, and infective cysts, resistant to adverse environments outside of hosts. Proteasomes are multicatalytic peptidase complexes responsible for the specific degradation of proteins in eukaryotic cells. This study assessed the proteasome activity in the trophozoite and during encystation.

Rediscovering the chikungunya virus.

The chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an Alphavirus that belongs to the Old World group. These arthritogenic viruses cause a febrile illness characterized by arthralgias and myalgias. Although fatal cases during CHIKV infection are rare, the disease may be disabling and generate a broad spectrum of atypical manifestations, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, eye, kidney, and skin complications, among others.

A new gene inventory of the ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like conjugation pathways in Giardia intestinalis.

Background: Ubiquitin (Ub) and Ub-like proteins (Ub-L) are critical regulators of complex cellular processes such as the cell cycle, DNA repair, transcription, chromatin remodeling, signal translation, and protein degradation. Giardia intestinalis possesses an experimentally proven Ub-conjugation system; however, a limited number of enzymes involved in this process were identified using basic local alignment search tool (BLAST). This is due to the limitations of BLAST's ability to identify homologous functional regions when similarity between the sequences dips to < 30%.

Zika, dengue, and chikungunya co-infection in a pregnant woman from Colombia.

The clinical findings of a pregnant woman from Colombia with a triple co-infection caused by dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses are described. Weekly obstetric ultrasounds from 14.6 to 29 weeks of gestation were normal.

Production of recombinant proteins from Plasmodium falciparum in Escherichia coli.

Introduction: The production of recombinant proteins is essential for the characterization and functional study of proteins from Plasmodium falciparum. However, the proteins of P. falciparum are among the most challenging to express, and when expression is achieved, the recombinant proteins usually fold incorrectly and lead to the formation of inclusion bodies.

Easy and inexpensive molecular detection of dengue, chikungunya and zika viruses in febrile patients.

Dengue (DENV), chikungunya (CHIKV) and zika (ZIKV) are arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) sharing a common vector, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. At initial stages, patients infected with these viruses have similar clinical manifestations, however, the outcomes and clinical management of these diseases are different, for this reason early and accurate identification of the causative virus is necessary. This paper reports the development of a rapid and specific nested-PCR for detection of DENV, CHIKV and ZIKV infection in the same sample.

Dengue and Chikungunya differential diagnosis in pediatric patients.

Introduction: Dengue and Chikungunya infections have similar clinical symptoms, which makes their clinical diagnosis complex. Moreover, both are transmitted by the same mosquito vectors, which results in virus co-circulation and co-infection. However, the outcome of these diseases differs: Chikungunya fever is rarely fatal but can have permanent and severe rheumatic and neurological sequelae, whereas dengue disease is potentially fatal.