Migratory birds have an important role in transporting ticks and associated tick-borne pathogens over long distances. In this study, 2,793 migratory birds were captured by nets in a ringing station, located in northern Italy, and checked for the presence of ticks. Two-hundred and fifty-one ticks were identified as nymphs and larvae of Ixodes ricinus (Linnaeus, 1758) and they were PCR-screened for the presence of bacteria belonging to Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Rickettsia spp., Francisella tularensis and Coxiella burnetii. Four species of Borrelia (B. garinii, B. afzelii, B. valaisiana and B. lusitaniae) and three species of Rickettsia (R. monacensis, R. helvetica and Candidatus Rickettsia mendelii) were detected in 74 (30%) and 25 (10%) respectively out of 251 ticks examined. Co-infection with Borrelia spp. and Rickettsia spp. in the same tick sample was encountered in 7 (7%) out of the 99 infected ticks. We report for the first time the presence of Candidatus Rickettsia mendelii in I. ricinus collected on birds in Italy. This study, besides confirming the role of birds in dispersal of I. ricinus, highlights an important route by which tick-borne pathogens might spread across different countries and from natural environments towards urbanised areas., Massimo Pajoro, Dario Pistone, Ilaria Varotto Boccazzi, Valeria Mereghetti, Claudio Bandi, Massimo Fabbi, Francesco Scattorin, Davide Sassera, Matteo Montagna., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Giardiasis is a common gastrointestinal infection of humans and animals with a worldwide distribution. Eight genetic groups (known as assemblages A to H) are currently recognised within the species complex of Giardia duodenalis (Lambl, 1859), of which assemblages A and B are responsible for infection of humans and other mammalian hosts. Genotyping data on giardiasis are not available from Slovenia. In this work, we have characterised isolates of G. duodenalis from 85 human symptomatic cases collected during 2002-2013. Genomic DNAs were first tested by a real-time (rt) PCR assay and then by conventional PCR at three loci (beta-giardin, bg; triose phosphate isomerase, tpi; and glutamate dehydrogenase, gdh). We found that the threshold cycle (Ct) values in rt-PCR testing were higher for samples collected during 2002-2005 and that this was paralleled by a low amplification rate in conventional PCR (6 of 32, i.e. 19%). In contrast, lower Ct values and higher amplification rate (45 of 53; 85%) were observed for samples collected during 2006-2013, suggesting an adverse effect of prolonged freezing of stools. Assemblages A and B were found with an almost identical frequency in the 51 genotyped samples. In agreement with previous studies, sequences from assemblage B isolates were characterised by larger genetic variability and by the presence of heterogeneous positions, which made assignment to specific genotypes difficult. Less variability was observed in sequences from assemblage A isolates, which belonged to the human-specific subassemblage AII. These data showed that the genotypes of G. duodenalis that circulate in humans in Slovenia are similar to those previously identified in Europe., Barbara Šoba, Sabina Islamović, Miha Skvarč, Simone M. Cacciò., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Toxoplasmosis is a common parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908), an obligate parasite capable of infecting a range of cell types in almost all warm-blooded animals. Upon infecting an intermediate host, the parasites differentiate into tachyzoites which rapidly infect host tissues. Usually, the invading parasites are cleared by the immune system and administered drugs, but some tachyzoites differentiate into bradyzoites forming tissue cysts. These tissue cysts could serve as a source for re-infection and exacerbations. Currently, treatment for toxoplasmosis is limited and, moreover, there are no drugs for treating the cystic stage thus rendering toxoplasmosis a global burden. Recently, we demonstrated that inorganic nanoparticles showed promising activity against the tachyzoite stage T. gondii. In the present study, we evaluated nanoparticles for effect on bradyzoite formation in vitro. Data revealed that the nanoparticles limited bradyzoite burden in vitro. Further, the nanoparticles decreased the bradyzoite-specific BAG-1 promoter activity relative to the untreated control under a bradyzoite-inducing culture condition, even though this reduction in BAG-1 promoter activity waned with increasing concentrations of nanoparticles. In contrast, a parallel experiment under normal cell culture conditions showed that the nanoparticle treatment mildly increased the BAG-1 promoter activity relative to the untreated control. Taken together, the findings are evidence that nanoparticles not only possess anti-tachyzoite potential but they also have anti-bradyzoite potential in vitro., Oluyomi Stephen Adeyemi, Yuho Murata, Tatsuki Sugi, Yongmei Han, Kentaro Kato., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Political forces dominating the mainstream of the Czech political scene accuse independently living individuals of selfish privatization and extrapolated consumerism. However, the shared household model of living (not in a couple or within own family) extensively spreads among independently living individuals alongside this ''privatization''. The milieu of this specific households, which represent so called ''chosen families'' consisting of flat mates and friends in the flat or house rented in group, is along with single occupied households the source of what is described as ''urban tribes''. Precisely these independently living individuals and their specific structures in contrary prevent and confront the societal erosion and disintegration. Their life-styles and everyday practices extensively lead to activities contributing to community revival at the local level as well as to maintaining of an open character of the society more generally.
We found unusual digenean intramolluscan stages, sporocysts and cercariae, in gastropods Sulcospira dautzenbergiana (Morelet) (Caenogastropoda: Pachychilidae) from Southern Vietnam and named them Cercaria cattieni 1. These cercariae have a stylet and thus belong to the Xiphidiata. However, such combination of characters as extremely large body size and I-shaped excretory bladder has not been found before in any other xiphidiocercariae. We obtained COI, ITS1, 5.8S + ITS2, and 28S rDNA sequences for C. cattieni 1. The latter allowed us to specify the phylogenetic position of the discovered cercariae: C. cattieni 1 falls within the superfamily Microphalloidea and is most closely grouped to Pachypsolus irroratus (Rudolphi, 1819) (Pachypsolidae), the sea turtle parasite. Information on the family Pachypsolidae is limited. Judging from the molecular phylogeny, C. cattieni 1 might be the larva of the Pachypsolidae, documented for the first time.
Changes in behaviour and cognition have been associated with latent infection from the apicomplexan protozoan Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908) in both animal and human studies. Further, neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia have also been associated with latent toxoplasmosis. Previously, we found no association between T. gondii immunoglobulin G antibody (IgG) seropositivity and depression in human adults between the ages of 20 and 39 years (n = 1 846) in a sample representative of the United States collected by the Centers for Disease Control as part of a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from three datasets collected between 1999-2004. In the present study, we used NHANES data collected between 2009 and 2012 that included subjects aged 20 to 80 years (n = 5 487) and used the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) to assess depression with the overall aim of testing the stability of the results of the prior study. In the current study, the seroprevalence of T. gondii was 13%. The percentage of subjects reporting clinical levels of depression assessed with the PHQ-9 was 8%. As before, we found no association between T. gondii IgG seroprevalence and depression (OR = 1.01, 95% CI = 0.81-1.25; p = 0.944) while controlling for sex, educational attainment, race-ethnicity, age, poverty-to-income ratio and cigarette smoking. We also found no positive associations between anti-T. gondii antibody titre and depression (OR = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.96-1.06; p = 0.868). Moreover, we found no association between T. gondii seroprevalence or antibody titre and suicidal ideation (seroprevalence: OR = 1.22, 95% CI = .85-1.75; p = 0.277, titre: OR = 1.05, 95% CI = 0.98-1.14; p = 0.177)., Defining depression to also include subjects currently taking antidepressant medication even with non-elevated questionnaires did not find evidence of a positive association between latent toxoplasmosis and depression. In the present study, neither T. gondii seroprevalence nor anti-T. gondii antibody titre was positively associated with depression or suicidal ideation among subjects aged 20 to 80 years., Shawn D. Gale, Andrew N. Berrett, Bruce Brown, Lance D. Erickson, Dawson W. Hedges., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908) is an intracellular parasite that can cause ongoing latent infection persisting for the duration of a non-definitive host's life. Affecting approximately one-third of the world's population, latent toxoplasmosis has been associated with neuropsychological outcomes and a previous report suggested an association between latent toxoplasmosis and adult height. Given the large number of people with latent toxoplasmosis and its potential associations with human height, we sought to better understand the association between latent toxoplasmosis and human morphology by evaluating seropositivity for T. gondii and multiple body measures reported in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III) and in the more recent continuous NHANES data sets from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for which data on T. gondii are available. In these analyses, latent toxoplasmosis was not associated with any of the body measures assessed in the NHANES datasets even after taking into account interactions between latent toxoplasmosis and testosterone suggesting that in these samples, latent toxoplasmosis is not associated with adult morphology including height., Andrew N. Berrett, Shawn D. Gale, Lance D. Erickson, Bruce L. Brown, Dawson W. Hedges., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Fleas infecting northern white-breasted hedgehogs, Erinaceus roumanicus (Barrett-Hamilton), collected from 2009-2011 in Budapest (Hungary) were studied. A total of 305 white-breasted hedgehogs were captured and 1,251 fleas were collected. The flea community comprised two species, the hedgehog flea Archaeopsylla erinacei (Bouche, 1835) and the dog flea Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826), although the latter was only found on three hedgehogs. Fleas were found on half of the host specimens (51%; n = 156) where their distribution was strongly aggregated. The sex ratio of A. erinacei was biased towards females and was correlated with host size. Interestingly, the sex ratio of fleas became more equal on heavier hosts. It had been expected that, under high competition, the sex ratio would be female biased because it is known that female ectoparasites dominate on poorer hosts. The body size of a random sample of 200 fleas (100 female and 100 male) was measured under a microscope. The analyses showed directional asymmetry in two features - the distance between the top of the head and the eye, and head length. In this two body traits the left side was significantly greater than right side in both sexes of A. erinacei. Our data shed light on the complex nature of the flea population infecting northern white-breasted hedgehogs in an urban area., Krzysztof Dudek, Gábor Földvári, Viktória Majláthová, Igor Majláth, Krisztina Rigó, Viktor Molnár, Mária Tóth, Łukasz Jankowiak, Piotr Tryjanowski., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Babesia caballi (Nuttal, 1910) is one of the causative agents of equine piroplasmosis which causes economic losses to horse industry in China. There is an urgent need for rapid detection method for B. caballi infection in Xinjiang Province, China. To prepare monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against Bc48 gene of B. caballi (Xinjiang local strains) and establish colloidal gold-immunochromatographic (ICT) assay for diagnosis of the disease, recombinant Bc48 was expressed and purified from Escherichia coli. With purified Bc48 as immunogen in mice, three hybridoma cells named 11F4, 1H2 and 7F4 secreting mAbs against Bc48 of B. caballi were obtained, which showed strong reaction with recombinant Bc48 and Bc48 gene transfected cells. Furthermore, colloidal gold labelled ICT assay based on purified Bc48 recombinant antigen and its mAb was developed. The ICT assay showed high sensitivity and specificity and no cross-reaction with Theileria equi (Laveran, 1901). Total of 56 horse serum samples collected from Xinjiang were tested by ICT and compared with the detection by commercial ELISA kit. The results showed that 32 out of 56 serum samples were positive by ICT and 33 were positive by ELISA. ICT assay had high coincidence (98%) to the reference ELISA kit. mAbs and ICT developed in this study could be provided as an efficient diagnosis tool for infection with B. caballi in horse in Xinjiang area., Panju Wang, Jingjing Song, Ruiqi Song, Mengyuan Zhang, Lijiang Wu, Fangxin Li, Yan Yan, Jiyong Zhou, Bayin Chahan, Min Liao., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Sonic booms or disruptive explosions cause differing response in wildlife. In May 2021, when missiles were fired at urban areas in Israel, we observed the responses of breeding common swifts (Apus apus). In both nests, the initial boom resulted in a startled awakening of the swifts. In one case, a parent engaged in displacement behaviour of feeding the young while in the second case a parent tried to clamber up the walls. Our data support earlier studies that although auditory booms are disruptive, they do not result in nest abandonment or nest failure.