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Tag: "parasitic" at biology news

Largest synthetic gene ever built offers insights into anti-malarial drug resistance

...nd this is followed by repeated cycles of mounting parasitic reproduction within red blood cells and accompanying fever. During red blood cell infection, P. falciparum degrades the hemoglobin in the red cell, producing a toxic byproduct known as heme, which the parasite then crystallizes so that it won't be po...

HIV and malaria combine to adversely affect pregnant women and their infants

...t women in malaria-ravished regions. Malaria is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes that kills more than one million people every year. While the disease affects mostly children, malaria also severely affects pregnant women, especially during their first pregnancy, accounting for an estimated 400,000 cas...

Toxoplasmosis infection trick revealed by scientists

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease, primarily carried by cats. It is transmitted to humans by eating undercooked meat or through contact with cat faeces. It is particularly dangerous for pregnant women, whose foetuses can be infected via the placenta, and those with a weakened...

Scientists sequence genome of parasite responsible for common sexually transmitted infection

...rmined by computer models and previously sequenced parasitic genomes. Repetitive genes accounted for roughly 65 percent of the genome. "Parasites generally have smaller amounts of DNA than non-parasitic organisms, but in this case, there was ten times as much DNA than we originally thought there would be," ...

Scientists identify a gene that may suppress colorectal cancer

...in the mouse Atp5a1 gene. In trypanosomes (tiny parasitic protozoa that cause African sleeping sickness), the loss of Atp5a1 gene function leads to death. To date, no mutations in the human ATP5A1 gene have been identified—further supporting its essential role in the cell. “In humans, ATP5A1 is lo...

Rearing an army to save wheat

...luding a two-year study that involved mass-rearing parasitic wasps that attack wheat stem sawfly larvae that tu... with wheat stem sawflies, and then introduced the parasitic wasps. His research explored whether supplemental food provided as nectar from flowering plants or a...

Bad blood between boys and girls

...rwissenschaften this week, to suggest an effect of parasitic infection on the sex of a baby. Kankova and colleagues analysed the effect of latent (or dormant) toxoplasmosis on the probability of the birth of a boy in humans. Latent toxoplasmosis is asymptomatic but is usually a life-long infection character...

Hope for major advance in fighting world killer disease

...rhoea is caused by a range of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms, and is usually spread by contaminated water and poor sanitation. Two particular bacteria , enteropathogenic E.coli (EPEC), which causes a persistent infection lasting more than 14 days, and Shigella, the cause of dysentery - are the most ...

For crickets, parasitic flies can stop the music

...ts draw not only females with their songs but also parasitic flies. The uninvited guests then deposit larvae th...ly fewer male crickets sing in the autumn when the parasitic flies are abundant. They also found that female crickets are reluctant to approach singing males in ...

Bacterial protein shows promise in treating intestinal parasites

...s global health problem. "Our ability to control parasitic nematode infections with chemotherapy on a global ... no one has used a purified Cry protein to treat a parasitic nematode." Aroian met Cappello, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist who studies hookworm, a...

New genetic analysis forces re-draw of insect family tree

...castaneum), honey bee (Apis mellifera) and sibling parasitic wasp species (Nasonia vitripennis and Nasonia giraulti). These insects represent the four major orders of holometabolous insects, beetles (Coleoptera), moths (Lepidoptera), flies (Diptera) and bees and wasps (Hymenoptera), which together represen...

Fire ant-attacking fly spreading rapidly in Texas

...ratory (BFL) have released multiple species of the parasitic flies, originally from Brazil and Argentina, to control invasive fire ants without pesticides. The fly larvae develop inside the ants and kill their host. Dr. Ed LeBrun, a researcher at BFL, developed the new flytraps that allowed him to map the sp...

Parasitic plants sniff out hosts

...o see how little was available on how above-ground parasitic plants find their hosts from far-off." The resear...chanisms by which host plants respond to attack by parasitic plants. ...

Plants tell caterpillars when it's safe to forage

...leases volatile compounds that act as a magnet for parasitic wasps ( Cotesia marginiventris ), which deposit th...d with M. separata releases volatiles that attract parasitic wasps ( C. kariyai ). The researchers separated the effects of photoperiod from that of host pla...

Even a little cooling helps after cardiac arrest

...are cracking open common marsh snails and counting parasitic worms. Their claim: the more parasites, the healthier the marsh. While the parasite hypothesis may conflict with conventional ideas about infectious disease and human health (malaria, for example, is caused by a parasite), the worms the scientists a...

How healthy is that marsh? Biologists count parasites

...are cracking open common marsh snails and counting parasitic worms. Their claim: the more parasites, the healthier the marsh. While the parasite hypothesis may conflict with conventional ideas about infectious disease and human health (malaria, for example, is caused by a parasite), the worms the scientists a...

Viral hitchhiker inhibits Wolbachia bacteria's ability to proliferate

...ies are caused by Wolbachia bacteria living in the parasitic worms associated with these diseases. The new research, led by Seth Bordenstein, an Assistant Scientist in the MBL's Program in Global Infectious Diseases, shows that a virus known as WO-B interferes with Wolbachia's ability to cause cytoplasmi...

Researchers add crucial information on how the body's T cells react to parasitic diseases

... than ever to understanding how T cells respond to parasitic diseases that kill millions each year. "We have ...s Aires, Argentina. Chagas Disease is a tropical parasitic disease that sickens as many as 18 million people a year, mostly in the Americas, and kills 50,000 o...

Parasitic worms used to fight bowel disease

...une system developed in a way that is dependent on parasitic worms to regulate immune responses." The particular worm that Mansfield and colleagues are studying as a potential treatment is known as the whipworm, or Trichuris suis, which is a parasite that afflicts pigs. Early studies have shown that giving hu...

A Jekyll and Hyde of cytokines: IL-25 both promotes and limits inflammatory diseases

...ver resulting from mankind's historical fight with parasitic worm infections. That is, a type 2 response that was once useful in fighting worm infections has now become a dangerous menace, causing inflammatory responses to commonly encountered environmental antigens. About 30 percent of Americans suffer from...

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