This Week in Parasitism

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson discuss innate immune sensing of Toxoplasma gondii in mice, and heme metabolism in protozoan parasites.

• Sensing Toxoplasma in mice (Cell Host Microbe)
• Make it, take it, or leave it (PLoS Path)
• Heme (Wikipedia)
• Letters read on TWiP 49

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Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, and Josef Sabo

Vincent, Dickson, and Josef discuss tetraspanins on the surface of schistosomes as vaccine candidates and immune evasion proteins.

• S. japonicum tetraspanin-2 as a vaccine target (PLoS NTP)
• Protection with S. mansoni tetraspanin-2 (PLoS NTP)
• S. mansoni tetraspanins confer protection (Nat Med)
• Tetraspanins
• Letters read on TWiP 48

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Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson review evidence that a virus of the protozoan parasite Trichomonas vaginalis may exacerbate disease.

• Endobiont viruses sensed by the human host (PLoS One)
• Letters read on TWiP 47

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected]

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson meet with Judith Straimer and Marcus Lee to discuss their method for site-specific genome editing in Plasmodium falciparumusing zinc finger nucleases.

Right-click to download TWiP #46 (46 MB .mp3, 64 minutes).

• Judith Straimer and Marcus Lee
• Genome editing in P. falciparum with zinc finger nucleases (Nature Methods)
• Zinc finger nucleases (Sigma-Aldrich)
• Gene-editing nucleases (Nature Methods)
• Illustration by Andrew Lee

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson discuss Toxoplasma biology with Stanford University Professor John Boothroyd.

• T. gondii and free range animals
• Kiss and spit: Toxoplasma rhoptries (Nat Rev Micro)
• Toxoplasma cell invasion (Curr Opin Micro)
• Loading of IRG onto parasitophorous vacuole (Cell Micro)
• Toxoplasma gondii on TWiP #12

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Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson explain how a nematode manipulates cricket behavior and alters the food web of a stream.

• Nematomorph parasites alter food web of streams (Ecol Lett)
• Manipulation of cockle behavior by a trematode (Parasitology)
• Cockles infected by one parasite are more susceptible to a second (J Parasitol)
• Letters read on TWiP 44

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].

Vincent and Dickson review how sickle cell microRNAs contribute to malaria resistance, and inhibition of innate immune responses by an enzyme from trypanosomes.

• microRNAs involved in sickle cell resistance to Plasmodium (Cell Host Microbe)
• Trypanosome adenylate cyclases modulate innate immune response (Science)
• Letters read on TWiP 43

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson answer listener emails about Leishmania, dual infection of vectors, tapeworms, liver flukes, toxoplasmosis, and much more.

• Metabolic pathways required by Leishmania (Ann Rev Micro)
• Tapeworms in people's brains (Carl Zimmer)
• Poison Ivy
• Bovine tuberculosis disguised by liver fluke (Nature)
• Giant kidney worm (YouTube)
• Crowd-sourced games for telepathology
• Ivermectin for alcohol abuse
• Ivermectin and alcohol abuse in mice (Neuropharm)
• Etymology of Loa
• Worm removed from man's eye (BBC)
• Ticks keep on ticking (PLoS One article)
• Letters read on TWiP 42

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson review medically important arthropods.

• Thomas Eisner
• Incomplete metamorphosis in insects (jpg)
• Complete metamorphosis in an insect with aquatic immature stages (jpg)
• Complete metamorphosis in an insect with terrestrial immature stages (jpg)
• Letters read on TWiP 41

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson discuss loaiasis caused by the filarial nematode Loa loa.

Right-click to download TWiP #40 (52 MB .mp3, 73 minutes).

• Albendazole therapy for US-bound refugees (NEJM)
• Microfilaria of Loa loa (png)
• Loa loa life cycle (png)
• Letters read on TWiP 40

Send your questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected].