Cryptosporidium spp. are medically and scientifically relevant protozoan parasites that cause severe diarrheal illness in infants, immunosuppressed populations and many animals. Although most human Cryptosporidium infections are caused by C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe siderophore-cephalosporin cefiderocol (FDC) presents a promising treatment option for carbapenem-resistant (CR) (PA). FDC circumvents traditional porin and efflux-mediated resistance by utilizing TonB-dependent receptors (TBDRs) to access the periplasmic space. Emerging FDC resistance has been associated with loss of function mutations within TBDR genes or the regulatory genes controlling TBDR expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFspp. are medically and scientifically relevant protozoan parasites that cause severe diarrheal illness in infants and immunosuppressed populations as well as animals. Although most human infections are caused by and , there are several other human-infecting species including , which is commonly observed in developing countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe siderophore-cephalosporin cefiderocol(FDC) presents a promising treatment option for carbapenem-resistant (CR) (PA). FDC circumvents traditional porin and efflux mediated resistance by utilizing TonB-dependent receptors (TBDRs) to access the periplasmic space. Emerging FDC resistance has been associated with loss of function mutations within TBDR genes or the regulatory genes controlling TBDR expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflammasome-mediated caspase-1 activation facilitates innate immune control of Plasmodium in the liver, thereby limiting the incidence and severity of clinical malaria. However, caspase-1 processing occurs incompletely in both mouse and human hepatocytes and precludes the generation of mature IL-1β or IL-18, unlike in other cells. Why this is so or how it impacts Plasmodium control in the liver has remained unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParasites and their hosts are engaged in reciprocal coevolution that balances competing mechanisms of virulence, resistance, and evasion. This often leads to host specificity, but genomic reassortment between different strains can enable parasites to jump host barriers and conquer new niches. In the apicomplexan parasite , genetic exchange has been hypothesized to play a prominent role in adaptation to humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrob Agents Chemother
January 2024
Cefiderocol is a siderophore cephalosporin designed to target multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Previously, the emergence of cefiderocol non-susceptibility has been associated with mutations in the chromosomal cephalosporinase (PDC) along with mutations in the PirA and PiuA/D TonB-dependent receptor pathways. Here, we report a clinical case of cefiderocol-resistant that emerged in a patient during treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCanine respiratory coronavirus (CRCoV) is one of the main causative agents of canine infectious respiratory disease (CIRD), an illness whose epidemiology is poorly understood. We assessed the prevalence, risk factors, and genetic characterization of CRCoV in privately owned dogs in the Southeastern United States. We PCR-screened 189 nasal swabs from dogs with and without CIRD clinical signs for 9 CIRD-related pathogens, including CRCoV; 14% of dogs, all diagnosed with CIRD, were positive for CRCoV, with a significantly higher rate of cases in younger dogs and during warmer weather.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParasites and their hosts are engaged in rapid coevolution that balances competing mechanisms of virulence, resistance, and evasion. This often leads to host specificity, but genomic reassortment between different strains can enable parasites to jump host barriers and conquer new niches. In the apicomplexan parasite genetic exchange has been hypothesized to play a prominent role in adaptation to humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis the causative agent of African trypanosomiasis, a deadly disease that affects humans and cattle. There are very few drugs to treat it, and there is evidence of mounting resistance, raising the need for new drug development. Here, we report the presence of a phosphoinositide phospholipase C (TbPI-PLC-like), containing an X and a PDZ domain, that is similar to the previously characterized TbPI-PLC1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMalaria, caused by parasites is a severe disease affecting millions of people around the world. undergoes obligatory development and replication in the hepatocytes, before initiating the life-threatening blood-stage of malaria. Although the natural immune responses impeding infection and development in the liver are key to controlling clinical malaria and transmission, those remain relatively unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFmBio
December 2022
Small and intermediate-size noncoding RNAs (sRNAs and is-ncRNAs) have been shown to play important regulatory roles in the development of several eukaryotic organisms. However, they have not been thoroughly explored in , an obligate zoonotic protist parasite responsible for the diarrhoeal disease cryptosporidiosis. Using Illumina sequencing of a small RNA library, a systematic identification of novel small and is-ncRNAs was performed in excysted sporozoites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe family has been associated with fatal diseases in numerous avian species. Several new taxa within this family, including Bisgaard taxon 40, have been recently described in wild birds, but their genomic characteristics and pathogenicity are not well understood. We isolated Bisgaard taxon 40 from four species of seabirds, including one sampled during a mass, multi-species mortality event in Florida, United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCryptosporidiosis is a leading cause of waterborne diarrheal disease globally and an important contributor to mortality in infants and the immunosuppressed. Despite its importance, the community has only had access to a good, but incomplete, IOWA reference genome sequence. Incomplete reference sequences hamper annotation, experimental design, and interpretation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFinding, characterizing and monitoring reservoirs for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is vital to protecting public health. Hybridization capture baits are an accurate, sensitive and cost-effective technique used to enrich and characterize DNA sequences of interest, including antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs), in complex environmental samples. We demonstrate the continued utility of a set of 19 933 hybridization capture baits designed from the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD)v1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCryptosporidiosis is ranked sixth in the list of the most important food-borne parasites globally, and it is an important contributor to mortality in infants and the immunosuppressed. Recently, the number of genome sequences available for this parasite has increased drastically. The majority of the sequences are derived from population studies of and , the most important species causing disease in humans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial genome content and structure vary widely across the eukaryotic tree of life, with protists displaying extreme examples. Apicomplexan and dinoflagellate protists have evolved highly reduced mitochondrial genome sequences, mtDNA, consisting of only three cytochrome genes and fragmented rRNA genes. Here, we report the independent evolution of fragmented cytochrome genes in and related tissue coccidia and evolution of a novel genome architecture consisting minimally of 21 sequence blocks (SBs) totaling 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrypanosoma cruzi is a protist parasite and the causative agent of American trypanosomiasis or Chagas disease. The parasite life cycle in its mammalian host includes an intracellular stage, and glycosylated proteins play a key role in host-parasite interaction facilitating adhesion, invasion and immune evasion. Here, we report that a Golgi-localized Mn2+-Ca2+/H+ exchanger of T.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMalaria remains a major global health problem, creating a constant need for research to identify druggable weaknesses in P. falciparum biology. As important components of cellular redox biology, members of the Thioredoxin (Trx) superfamily of proteins have received interest as potential drug targets in Apicomplexans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
June 2021
is a protist parasite that has been identified as the second leading cause of moderate to severe diarrhea in children younger than two and a significant cause of mortality worldwide. has a complex, obligate, intracellular but extra cytoplasmic lifecycle in a single host. How genes are regulated in this parasite remains largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi almost invariably establishes life-long infections in humans and other mammals, despite the development of potent host immune responses that constrain parasite numbers. The consistent, decades-long persistence of T. cruzi in human hosts arises at least in part from the remarkable level of genetic diversity in multiple families of genes encoding the primary target antigens of anti-parasite immune responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnique lindenane sesquiterpenoid dimers from spp. were recently identified with promising antiplasmodial activity and potentially novel mechanisms of action. To gain mechanistic insights to this new class of natural products, selection of resistance to the most active antiplasmodial compound, chlorajaponilide C, was explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent breakthroughs in high-throughput technologies, transcriptomics, and advances in our understanding of gene regulatory networks have enhanced our perspective on the complex interplay between parasite and host. Noncoding RNA molecules have been implicated in critical roles covering a broad range of biological processes in the Apicomplexa. Processes that are affected range from parasite development to host-parasite interactions and include interactions with epigenetic machinery and other regulatory factors.
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