Month: September 2022

PARASITE CAMOUFLAGE. "The ability of Toxoplasma to establish a chronic, asymptomatic infection by converting into transmissible tissue cysts that remain hidden from the host's immune system is an important feature of the parasite's life cycle that allows it to be such a successful and wide-spread pathogen." https://lnkd.in/egUG5qe View in LinkedIn

STAGE-SPECIFIC GENES. "Changes in parasite gene expression are an important facet of bradyzoite development and Toxoplasma surface proteins represent the largest group of stage-specific genes." https://lnkd.in/egUG5qe View in LinkedIn

ANOTHER HOST GENE HACKER. "Leishmania infantum, a causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis, is able to infect host macrophages and modulate a myriad of signalling pathways that contributes to the disease outcome." https://lnkd.in/egTnZjj View in LinkedIn

METABOLIC PATHWAY ACQUISITION. "The intracellular growth of Trypanosoma cruzi was recently shown to rely predominantly on the energy production, nucleotide metabolism and fatty acid oxidation of the host." https://lnkd.in/egTnZjj View in LinkedIn

HOST METABOLIC MANIPULATION. "Although the metabolic manipulation of host cells is recognized to play an important role in the pathologic processes of infection, the puzzle is even more complex when the invading pathogen shares many metabolic pathways with the host, a frequent case for protozoan infections." https://lnkd.in/eQuQ_vK View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this excursion into viral then parasitic attempts to enter their hosts, hijack their metabolic machinery, change their body forms, or go into chronic stealth mode to reproduce their kind. In extreme cases, such as toxoplasma Gondi, the host is a mere pawn in the parasite lifestyle. In other cases, the pathology is benign. This fascinating and complicated relationship shows the ingenuity of adaptive evolution. View in LinkedIn

IMPLANTATION PROTEIN. "Syncytin-1 is responsible for the fusion of fetal trophoblasts into the placental syncytiotrophoblast layer, which allows for embryo implantation." https://lnkd.in/eZe8TGB View in LinkedIn

FUSOGENIC PROTEINS. "Syncytin proteins are typical retroviral-like envelope proteins and have retained the general structure of these glycoproteins. Even though they originate from exogenous retroviruses having infected primate ancestors over several million years ago, these proteins have remarkably conserved their fusogenic potential." https://lnkd.in/eNxap6v View in LinkedIn

INFECTIOUS ORIGIN. "The layer of fused cells that forms the membrane between mother and fetus is the key histological feature of the placenta. Cell-cell fusion is not a common feature of mammalian cells, but it is the basis of how retroviruses and other enveloped viruses enter host cells during an infection." https://lnkd.in/e6q2jTP View in LinkedIn

"ERV ENVELOPE PROTEINS Syncytin-1 and -2 have been clearly shown to be implicated in normal placenta function through their fusogenic ability to drive cytotrophoblast fusion to the syncytiotrophoblast layer. Through their active immunosuppression domain, these proteins might also modulate the immune response, which otherwise would harm the fetus." https://lnkd.in/eNxap6v View in LinkedIn