Articles & Issues

Amebic liver abscess, the most frequent form of extraintestinal amebiasis, is still fairly prevalent in endemic geographic areas throughout the world. Although amebic liver abscess may be lethal witho...

First-line drugs for the chemotherapy of amebiasis are nitroimidazoles, with metronidazole as the drug of choice. To date, no clinically relevant resistance has been reported. Cases that did not respo...

Intestinal amebiasis is caused by the protozoan Entamoeba histolytica. The invasive form of this infection is caused by pathogenic E. histolytica, while luminal asymptomatic colonization is caused by ...

Amebiasis is a parasitic disease that extends worldwide, and is a public health problem in developing countries . To date, there is no ideal treatment for amebiasis. This is mainly due to the toxicity...

Amebiasis is one of the common gastrointestinal parasitic infections of mankind. The existence of two distinct species has now been established, the pathogenic being Entamoeba histolytica and the nonp...

In the study of amebiasis, the obtention and characterization of relevant antigens from Entamoeba histolytica has been difficult because amebas contain a large amount of proteases. This causes the deg...

The human parasite Entamoeba histolytica causes invasive disease in the large intestine that may spread to other organs, mainly the liver, and less commonly to lungs and brain. Acute amebic rectocolit...

Amebiasis is caused by the protozoan Entamoeba histolytica. This disease, or the asymptomatic infection, is associated with poor socioeconomic conditions, malnutrition, and poor hygiene behavior, all ...

Amebiasis is a common worldwide protozoosis, hyperendemic in developing intertropical countries, where poor hygienic conditions favor the environmental spread of the parasite and indirect fecal–oral t...

Differentiation of potential pathogenic Entamoeba histolytica and nonpathogenic Entamoeba dispar is of clinical importance upon finding the characteristic cysts in a stool sample. Not only is treatmen...

Entamoeba histolytica is responsible for human invasive amebiasis. This disease has an endemic behavior in specific geographic areas throughout the world, and is commonly associated with population wi...

Amebic infection is common in Mexico, and is closely linked to cultural and socio-economic factors such as deficiencies in health services and poor hygiene. Studies in Mexico report a frequency varyin...

Entamoeba histolytica, a human invasive parasite, adheres to extracellular matrix (ECM) components, particularly to fibronectin (FN) and collagen (COL), eliciting structural (rearrangement of the cyto...

Parasites encounter reactive oxygen species that are generated by host immune cells. Therefore, antioxidant enzymes of parasites would play important roles in the protection of the organisms. Recently...

Entamoeba trophozoites possess biosynthetic pathways of the sulfur-containing amino acids similar to those in a variety of bacteria and plants. These unique biosynthetic pathways should provide good t...

Invasion of the colonic epithelium and evasion of host immune defenses have long been intriguing aspects of amebiasis. Before the organism can bind to the epithelium, it must overcome the protective m...

In vivo studies employing laboratory animals are useful to understand some of the mechanisms of pathogenesis in amebiasis. Most of these studies have been performed in animals susceptible to liver inf...

There are clear differences between mucosal and systemic immunity. Several evidences also indicate the compartmentalization of immune responses within different mucosal effector sites . In the case of...

Reports of a successful animal model for Entamoeba histolytica intestinal infection have been cited using gerbils and mice , but have not been widely utilized. Therefore, our understanding of the immu...

Entamoeba histolytica synthesizes a heat-stable pentapeptide, originally identified by one of its effects on mononuclear phagocytes (MP) as a monocyte locomotion inhibitory factor (MLIF). In addition ...

Th1-dependent cellular immunoinflammatory responses are claimed to be primarily involved in the progress and eventual outcome of invasive amebiasis [i.e., amebic abscess of the liver (AAL)] . Th1 cell...

Mice have been considered resistant to develop intestinal and extraintestinal amebic lesions. The immune system of this animal has been amply studied; however, previous studies performed in normal, SC...

During the invasive process, amebas, like many other parasites, use mechanisms that alter or evade the host defense system . We have previously reported that zinc inhibits replication and adherence of...

MLIF is an anti-inflammatory oligopeptide produced by Entamoeba histolytica in axenic cultures that among other effects inhibits the locomotion of human peripheral blood monocytes [hence, its name, mo...

We have previously demonstrated that intraperitoneal (i.p.) immunization of mice with glutaraldehyde-fixed trophozoites (GFT) of Entamoeba histolytica elicites strong local and systemic immune respons...

During amebic liver abscess (ALA) formation, macrophage activity is probably suppressed by inflammation-derived mediators, such as prostaglandins . Recently, we have demonstrated that development of e...

Signal transduction mechanisms have been demonstrated to operate in Entamoeba histolytica trophozoites after diverse external stimuli . Interaction with FN transduces information into the amebas that ...

Only seconds after stimulation by agonists of motile nonmuscle cells, globular actin (G-actin) molecules are recruited for polymerization to filamentous actin (F-actin), which appears to be a prerequi...

Invasion of human intestinal mucosa by Entamoeba histolytica is accomplished by adhesion, phagocytosis, and killing of epithelial cells leading to tissue lysis and ulceration. This cytopathic effect i...

Entamoeba histolytica is characterized by the capacity of trophozoites to destroy human tissues. One of the major components in human tissues is collagen. Consequently, collagenase associated with ele...