Alberto M. R. Dávila

Outbreak of trypanosomiasis due to Trypanosoma vivax (Ziemann, 1905) in bovines of the Pantanal, Brazil.

Laboratório de Ecopatologia, EMBRAPA, Centro de Pesquisa Agropecuária do Pantanal, Rua 21 de Setembro 1880, 79720-900 Corumbá, MS, Brasil *Associação Brasileira de Criadores de Cavalo Pantaneiro, Av. Joaquim Murtinho s/n, 78175-000 Poconé, MT, Brasil **Instituto de Defesa Agropecuária do Estado de Mato Grosso, Av. BEdificio Ceres 2o and., Cuiabá, MT, Brasil ***Delegacia Federal de Agricultura, Abastecimento e Reforma Agrária do Mato Grosso, Seção Sanidade Animal, Alameda Anibal Molina s/n, 78115-901 Varzea Grande, MT, Brasil ****Laboratório Ultracenter, Rua General Vale 350, 78000-000 Cuiabá, MT, Brasil

Hematology of natural bovine trypanosomosis in the Brazilian Pantanal and Bolivian wetlands

We report hematological changes observed in natural cases of bovine trypanosomosis due to Trypanosoma vivax in beef and dairy cattle from Bolivian wetlands and Pantanal, Brazil. The main hematologic changes produced by T. vivax infections were anemia and severe leucopenia. The cattle presented macrocytic hypochromic anemia. The leukocyte changes were characterized by relative lymphocytosis and monocytosis and decrease in the neutrophil counts. The clinical signs were lachrymation, progressive weakness, marked weight loss, inappetence, diarrhea and abortions during the third trimester of pregnancy.

Transcriptome analysis of Taenia solium cysticerci using Open Reading Frame ESTs (ORESTES)

BackgroundHuman infection by the pork tapeworm Taenia solium affects more than 50 million people worldwide, particularly in underdeveloped and developing countries. Cysticercosis which arises from larval encystation can be life threatening and difficult to treat. Here, we investigate for the first time the transcriptome of the clinically relevant cysticerci larval form.ResultsUsing Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) produced by the ORESTES method, a total of 1,520 high quality ESTs were generated from 20 ORESTES cDNA mini-libraries and its analysis revealed fragments of genes with promising applications including 51 ESTs matching antigens previously described in other species, as well as 113 sequences representing proteins with potential extracellular localization, with obvious applications for immune-diagnosis or vaccine development.ConclusionThe set of sequences described here will contribute to deciphering the expression profile of this important parasite and will be informative for the genome assembly and annotation, as well as for studies of intra- and inter-specific sequence variability. Genes of interest for developing new diagnostic and therapeutic tools are described and discussed.

Estimated financial impact of Trypanosoma vivax on the Brazilian pantanal and Bolivian lowlands.

The financial impact of the first outbreak of Trypanosoma vivax in the Brazilian Pantanal wetland is estimated. Results are extended to include outbreaks in the Bolivian lowlands providing a notion of the potential influence of the disease and an analytical basis. More than 11 million head of cattle, valued at more than US

The Seroprevalence of Equine Trypanosomosis in the Pantanal

3 billion are found in the Brazilian Pantanal and Bolivian lowlands. The total estimated cost of the 1995 outbreak of T. vivax is the sum of the present values of mortality, abortion, and productivity losses and treatment costs, or about 4% of total brood cow value on affected ranches. Had the outbreak gone untreated, the estimated losses would have exceeded 17% of total brood cow value.

MEASUREMENTS OF TRYPANOSOMA EVANSI FROM THE PANTANAL

Since little information is available on the epizootiological status of Trypanosoma evansi in South America and particularly Brazil, we evaluated equine serum samples collected in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1997 for the presence of antibodies against this trypanosome species. Our study shows corroborative evidence about the correlation among high T. evansi seroprevalence and the rainy season in the Pantanal, Brazil. The higher seroprevalence was 79.2% in horses from a ranch located in the Nhecolândia sub-region in 1994 and the lower 5.8% in animals from the same ranch in 1997. No seroprevalence was found in 1993. The possible re-introduction of T. evansi in the region as well as the relationship among our results with the outbreaks reported in 1994, are briefly discussed.

Biometrical alterations of Trypanosoma evansi isolate in laboratory rodents

Laboratorio de Ecopatologia, Centro de PesquisaAgropecuaria do Pantanal, EMBRAPA, Rua 21 deSetembro 1880, 79320-900 Corumba, MS, Brasil*Laboratorio de Biologia de Tripanosomatideos,Departamento de Protozoologia, Instituto OswaldoCruz, Av. Brasil 4365, 21045-900 Rio de Janeiro, RJ,BrasilKey words: Trypanosoma evansi - measurements -Pantanal - dog - Nasua nasua - horse - Brazil

An Orthology-Based Analysis of Pathogenic Protozoa Impacting Global Health: An Improved Comparative Genomics Approach with Prokaryotes and Model Eukaryote Orthologs

Biometrical alterations in a horse Trypanosoma evansi isolate were observed when passaged in laboratory rodents. The major parasite transformation observed was the increase in the total length as a consequence of an increase in some parasite measurements. These transformations probably occurred as a consequence of a host change from horse to rodents. No kinetoplastic forms were observed.

Bovine trypanosomosis due to Trypanosoma vivax in the German Bush province, Bolivia

A key focus in 21(st) century integrative biology and drug discovery for neglected tropical and other diseases has been the use of BLAST-based computational methods for identification of orthologous groups in pathogenic organisms to discern orthologs, with a view to evaluate similarities and differences among species, and thus allow the transfer of annotation from known/curated proteins to new/non-annotated ones. We used here a profile-based sensitive methodology to identify distant homologs, coupled to the NCBIs COG (Unicellular orthologs) and KOG (Eukaryote orthologs), permitting us to perform comparative genomics analyses on five protozoan genomes. OrthoSearch was used in five protozoan proteomes showing that 3901 and 7473 orthologs can be identified by comparison with COG and KOG proteomes, respectively. The core protozoa proteome inferred was 418 Protozoa-COG orthologous groups and 704 Protozoa-KOG orthologous groups: (i) 31.58% (132/418) belongs to the category J (translation, ribosomal structure, and biogenesis), and 9.81% (41/418) to the category O (post-translational modification, protein turnover, chaperones) using COG; (ii) 21.45% (151/704) belongs to the categories J, and 13.92% (98/704) to the O using KOG. The phylogenomic analysis showed four well-supported clades for Eukarya, discriminating Multicellular [(i) human, fly, plant and worm] and Unicellular [(ii) yeast, (iii) fungi, and (iv) protozoa] species. These encouraging results attest to the usefulness of the profile-based methodology for comparative genomics to accelerate semi-automatic re-annotation, especially of the protozoan proteomes. This approach may also lend itself for applications in global health, for example, in the case of novel drug target discovery against pathogenic organisms previously considered difficult to research with traditional drug discovery tools.

Managing workflows on top of a cloud computing orchestrator for using heterogeneous environments on e-Science

Trypanosoma vivax es un hemoparasito encontrado en la region de la mosca tse-tse en Africa. Sin embargo, el se ha difundido a otras partes de Africa, Centro-America, Sud-America, Indias Occidentales e Islas Mauricio. Este trabajo es un relato de la primera occurencia de T. vivax en la provincia de German Bush, Bolivia. T. vivax fue identificado en 45% de los 80 bovinos examinados por el test de microhematocrito. Los sintomas clinicos observados fueran fiebre, anemia, abortos, emagrecimiento progresivo, perdida substancial de peso en tiempo corto y emaciacion progresiva y linfonodos aumentados. Lo resultados de este estudio sugieren que la difusion acelerada de T. vivax podrian representar un serio impacto a la economia de la region