“Clinical manifestations of flavivirus infection may be va


“Clinical manifestations of flavivirus infection may be various, from unapparent to severe meningoencephalitis. Our patient, 2 weeks after returning home from a holiday at Elba Island, developed biphasic fever, later associated with nausea and vomiting and followed by incoming seizures responsive to thiopental sodium only. Brain MRI showed bilateral hyperintensity (T2) in amygdale, hippocampus, left insular and temporal inferior cortex. Standard and microbiological CSF examination was normal, but microbiological serum analysis showed seroconversion for flavivirus. The patient came to our observation

6 months after disease onset and at that time he was affected by frequent seizures and severe cognitive impairment with behavioural disturbances; the patient also showed distal weakness with footstepping. EEG Selonsertib price showed bitemporal epileptic foci. During the following months, seizures greatly decreased and cognitive status improved in response to a complex antiepileptic therapy. Flavivirus encephalitis should selleckchem be taken into account in the differential diagnosis of encephalitis selectively involving temporal lobes.”
“Background: Humoral immune responses play a key role in the

development of immunity to malaria, but the host genetic factors that contribute to the naturally occurring immune responses to malarial antigens are not completely understood. The aim of the present investigation was to determine whether, in subjects exposed to malaria,

GM and KM allotypes-genetic markers of immunoglobulin gamma and kappa-type light chains, respectively-contribute to the magnitude of natural antibody responses to target antigens that are leading vaccine candidates for protection against Plasmodium vivax.

Methods: Sera from 210 adults, who had been exposed to malaria transmission in the Brazilian Amazon endemic area, were allotyped for several GM and KM determinants by a standard hemagglutination-inhibition method. IgG subclass antibodies to P. vivax apical membrane antigen 1 (PvAMA-1) and merozoite surface protein 1 (PvMSP1-19) were determined by an enzyme-linked GF120918 immunosorbent assay. Multiple linear regression models and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test were used for data analyses.

Results: IgG1 antibody levels to both PvMSP1-19 and PvAMA-1 antigens were significantly higher (P = 0.004, P = 0.002, respectively) in subjects with the GM 3 23 5,13,14 phenotype than in those who lacked this phenotype.

Conclusions: Results presented here show that immunoglobulin GM allotypes contribute to the natural antibody responses to P. vivax malaria antigens. These findings have important implications for the effectiveness of vaccines containing PvAMA-1 or PvMSP1-19 antigens. They also shed light on the possible role of malaria as one of the evolutionary selective forces that may have contributed to the maintenance of the extensive polymorphism at the GM loci.

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