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Parasite Versus Host: Pathology and Disease
Published in Eric S. Loker, Bruce V. Hofkin, Parasitology, 2023
Eric S. Loker, Bruce V. Hofkin
Certain apicomplexans, including Toxoplasma gondii and Eimeria tenella, seem to produce what may be called a legitimate toxin; a 15 kD protein that acts as an actin-depolymerizing factor in infected cells. Members of the related genus Sarcocystis produce a homologous protein that acts in the same way. The case of Sarcocystis, which has a life cycle similar to T. gondii, is particularly interesting. Like T. gondii, the life cycle is heteroxenous, with gametogony and sporogony (see Figure 3.15) taking place in the intestine of the definitive host, with oocysts being shed in the feces. Herbivorous mammals (including humans) may inadvertently consume these oocysts whereupon they serve as intermediate hosts. The life cycle is completed when a predator consumes the intermediate host. But whereas only cats can serve as definitive hosts for T. gondii, various meat eaters, including humans, may act as definitive hosts for at least some Sarcocystis species. When humans become thus infected by consuming undercooked meat, they experience diarrhea, which has been attributed to the parasite-encoded toxic protein.
Fasting
Published in Mehwish Iqbal, Complementary and Alternative Medicinal Approaches for Enhancing Immunity, 2023
Fasting can have constructive outcomes in the prevention and management of cancer. In rodents, alternate-day fasting (ADF) brought about a significant reduction in the occurrence of lymphomas (Descamps et al., 2005), and one day of fasting per week impeded the spontaneous development of tumours in P53-lacking rodents (Berrigan et al., 2002). In animal models of metastatic tumours, amalgamations of cancer treatments and fasting that cause differential stress sensitisation and differential stress resistance result in 20 to 60% carcinoma-free endurance contrasted with fasting or chemotherapy alone, which are usually not enough to give rise to any carcinoma-free survival (Lee et al., 2012; Shi et al., 2012).
Forecasting of COVID-19 with the ARIMA Model in India as a Preventive Measure of Healthcare Catastrophe
Published in Adarsh Garg, D. P. Goyal, Global Healthcare Disasters, 2023
Sanjeev K.R. Jain, Kapil Mohan Garg
Table 2.2 represents the order of integration, that is, “d,” lag of AR, that is, “p” in AR or AR(p), and lag length of moving average or “q” in MA(q). The selection of “d” is based on ADF while PACF and ACF are used for the selection of “p” and “q,” respectively. The situation of under differenced and over differenced has been adjusted by the increase/ decrease in “p” and “q,” respectively conditional to the individual significance level. The same strategy has also been adopted if all or any coefficient(s) of AR and MA process is/are not significant individually or jointly despite the order of integration, and the lag length is/are added if it increases the significance level of previously selected lag lengths based on PACF and ACFs to make the models more robust which is duly checked by the normality in residual terms. The classical determination to find out the right differencing, that is, order of “d” which is at the minimum differencing, is required to get near stationary, instead of a higher order of ‘d,’ that is, over differencing is considered through the ADF test. In the case, where it is really difficult to decide between two adjacent orders of differencing, the least variance differenced series is considered as the order of “,d”. The Final selection of the ARIMA model to decide ‘p’, ‘d’, and ‘q’ is done based on AIC, where AIC is the minimum among all considered models. The following table is showing the model’s parameters.
LC-MS/MS: A sensitive and selective analytical technique to detect COVID-19 protein biomarkers in the early disease stage
Published in Expert Review of Proteomics, 2023
Siva Nageswara Rao Gajula, Ankita Sahebrao Khairnar, Pallavi Jock, Nikita Kumari, Kendre Pratima, Vijay Munjal, Pavan Kalan, Rajesh Sonti
Muñoz-Prieto et al. analyzed saliva samples from 19 asymptomatic, 16 symptomatic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and 20 controls using LC-MS/MS for untargeted peptidomics and proteomic (trypsin digestion of filter retained proteins) profiling [81]. Peptides from 53 salivary proteins are identified. Only controls had Actin-depolymerizing factor (ADF), whereas infected individuals had Interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL1RA). In asymptomatic and symptomatic participants, Basic salivary proline-rich proteins (PRPs), Desmocollin-2 (DSC2), Fatty acid binding protein 5 (FABP5), Histatin 1 (his-1), IL1RA, Salivary acidic proline rich phosphoprotein ½ (PRH1), Statherin (STATH), Submaxillary gland androgen regulated protein 3B (SMR3B), Annexin A1 (ANXA1), Mucin 7 (MUC7), Alpha-actinin-4 (ACTN4), Immunoglobulin kappa variable 1–33 (IGKV1-33) and Protein-glutamine gamma-glutamyltransferase E (TGM3) were significantly different. Out of 117 retained proteins, 11 changed significantly from asymptomatic to symptomatic. The most significant discriminant proteins at Principal component analyses followed by LC-MS/MS-SRM validation were IL1RA, CYSTB, S100A8, S100A9, CA6, and FABP5. For potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets, the differentially abundant proteins implicated in innate immunity (S100 proteins), taste (CA6 and cystatins), and viral binding to the host (FABP5) appear to be of interest.
Epithelial barrier dysfunction and cell migration induction via JNK/cofilin/actin by angubindin-1
Published in Tissue Barriers, 2020
Takumi Konno, Takayuki Kohno, Shin Kikuchi, Hiroshi Shimada, Seiro Satohisa, Tsuyoshi Saito, Masuo Kondoh, Takashi Kojima
To maintain the epithelial barrier, the presence of actin, which is one component of the cytoskeleton, is also important, and tricellular contacts are thought to have a specific mechanism in the regulation of the actin skeleton.9,10 Regulation of the epithelial barrier is one of the important functions of the actin cytoskeleton.11,12 Actin filaments are associated with the regulation of assembly and function of AJs and TJs.13–15 Cofilin is a member of the actin-depolymerizing factor (ADF)/cofilin family, which is a group of proteins that directly regulate actin dynamics.16 Dephosphorylation of phosphorylated cofilin activates its direct regulation of actin dynamics.16 It is reported that cofilin mediates tight junction opening by redistributing actin and tight junction proteins.17 It is also reported that the reversible increase in tight junction permeability induced by capsaicin, which is a pungent ingredient found in chili peppers, is mediated via cofilin-actin cytoskeletal dynamics.18