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Aptamers in Bacterial, Viral, and Parasitic Diseases
Published in Rakesh N. Veedu, Aptamers, 2017
Henning Ulrich, Arquimedes Cheffer, Flávia M. Zimbres, Attila Tárnok, Carsten Wrenger
Trypanosomiasis is caused by the tropical protozoan parasite Trypanosoma. Due to its medical importance the causative agent of Chagas’ disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, as well as African trypanosomes, T. brucei ssp., which are responsible for sleeping sickness and Nagana in cattle, novel therapeutics and diagnostics need to be discovered. Consequently, the aptamer technique was also applied to T. brucei, which undergoes antigenic variation of its variant surface glycoproteins (VSGs) [30]. Three aptamer families were isolated to surface proteins of African trypanosomes with binding affinities in the nanomolar and subnanomolar range [31]. As unmodified RNA aptamers are promptly degraded in biological fluids, these cannot be used for in vivo studies. However, substitution of the 2′-OH groups of ribose residue of nucleotide by amino-fluoro-functions augments their half-life from a few seconds to several hours [9]. Such chemical modifications provided the anti–T. brucei aptamer with nuclease resistance [31].
Antimalarial and Other Antiparasitic Drugs
Published in Richard J. Sundberg, The Chemical Century, 2017
African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is transmitted by the tsetse fly (Glossina). It is limited to the range of the tsetse fly in Africa, between about 14°N and 20°S latitude. The T.b. rhodiesnse variety is an acute form of the disease and is fatal in a matter of a few months if untreated, while T.b. gambiense is more chronic and victims can survive for several years. The infections become fatal when the central nervous system is involved. The disease can be transferred from animals (cattle in the case of T.b. rhodesiense) or humans. Civil unrest which interferes with medical treatment can permit resurgence of the diseases. Figure 18.2 shows the life cycle of T. brucei.
Health Aspects of Using Reclaimed Water in Engineering Projects
Published in Donald R. Rowe, Isam Mohammed Abdel-Magid, Handbook of Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse, 2020
Donald R. Rowe, Isam Mohammed Abdel-Magid
Trypanosomiasis is a disease caused by parasites of the genus Trypanosoma. It includes sleeping sickness in Africa and chagas disease in Central and South America. African trypanosomiasis is known as sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock. Cattle trypanosomiasis is a main cause of economic loss in endemic areas. Trypanosomiasis is detected in all tropical areas of Africa where tsetse flies are found. The disease is due to many Trypanosoma species that attack humans, cattle, and a variety of other domestic as well as wild animals. Typical symptoms of the disease include a decrease in the number of red blood cells (anemia), fever, irritation of the inner lining of the eyelid (conjunctivitis), nervous symptoms, paralysis, and death.
Trypanosomiasis, tropical medicine, and the practices of inter-colonial research at Lake Victoria, 1902-07
Published in History and Technology, 2019
Human African trypanosomiasis, known commonly as sleeping sickness, is a parasitic infection spread by a biting fly, generally fatal when left untreated. As the trypanosome parasite affects the body’s systems, it causes wasting, weakness, and malaise, ultimately impacting the central nervous system and causing disruptions in sleep and temperament before coma and death. Unpredictable sleepiness and an inability to be awakened gave the illness its early colloquial names, ranging from ‘sleeping sickness’ to malali (from the Bantu root verb – lala, to sleep). The causative parasite Trypanosoma brucei exists only on the African continent; it and its tsetse fly vector extend across wide swaths of tropical and savannah climate zones, giving it a long and deep-seated history in both human and animal populations.1 Its modern story is singular: it has sickened and killed hundreds of thousands of people since the late nineteenth century after breaking out in repeated, successive epidemics that followed on the heels of European colonial incursion.2 New colonial economic imperatives that shifted labor, diminished food security, and forced environmental change for African populations catalyzed or exacerbated these epidemics, which killed an estimated 500,000 in the Congo River basin and an estimated 250,000–300,000 in the Lake Victoria basin before 1920. Some affected populations in central Africa called it ‘the colonial disease’.3 Epidemic trypanosomiasis linked directly to increasing violence, insecurity, famine, and social disruption.