What is the Dengue virus? And are You at Risk?

What is the Dengue virus? And are You at Risk?


Dengue virus mostly found in the tropical areas and is transmitted through animal or insect bite/stings. The Dengue virus is mostly spread through mosquito bites. The Dengue virus can either cause Dengue fever or Dengue Shock Syndrome. Dengue fever is characterized by high fever, severe headaches, pain behind the eyes, severe joint and muscle pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, skin rash, and mild bleeding (i.e. nose bleeds, bleeding gum, or easy bruising). If dengue fever goes untreated it could lead to dengue shock syndrome. Dengue shock syndrome can be a result from dengue infection. Dengue shock syndrome causes increased vascular permeability, myocardial dysfunction and dehydration which in turn causes multi-organ failure. In this study, researchers analyzed the genetics 411 patients admitted with dengue virus infection to three hospitals in Thailand. The patient’s genetics were compared to the genetics of 290 healthy individuals admitted to the same hospitals. From the data collected researchers identified two genes related to blood vessel inflammation that confer risks of Dengue Shock Syndrome and four genes relate to drug metabolism that affect risk of Dengue Fever. The study's main purpose was to determine if different races had a higher risk for dengue inflections. The researchers concluded that Southeast and Northeast Asians are highly susceptible to both phenotypes, while African are best protected against Dengue Shock Syndrome and Europeans best protected against Dengue Fever but most susceptible to Dengue Shock Syndrome. I find this article interesting because with a greater understanding of the genetic correlations of Dengue inflections, research could be done find treatments to make individuals genetically less susceptible to the diseases. With a better understanding of the origin of the disease, treatments can be modified to attack the source of the disease not just counteract the symptoms. Also, the idea that the researchers focused on race susceptibility in interesting. I wonder how the results of this study how change when considering mixed raced individuals. Would these individuals have a combination of susceptibility/immunity? Or will these individuals experience adverse effects?

Parasites Mutate Their Host Cells Into Cancer Cells

In certain tropical areas there is a parasite called Theileria.  These parasites infect the white blood cells of mammals and cause their healthy cells to mutate into cancer like cells. These parasites mainly infect cattle. Once Theileria attacks the white blood cells it will let out a protein that is called Pin1. This protein allows for the mutation in the cells to happen. Scientists were actually able to create a drug that will take the cancer cells and return them back to normal cells.

This discovery is helping scientists further understand if and how parasites and cancer are connected. Dr. Helen Rippon head of worldwide cancer research was even saying that it has been proven parasites can cause cancer in humans. Schistosomiasis  is another example of a cancer causing parasite. A human infected with this parasite increases their rise of bladder cancer. Schistosomiasis infects about 240 million people worldwide.

This article is very interesting in explaining to readers how cancer can be caused by a parasite. It is also very intriguing in the fact that scientists were able to create an anti-parasite drug to cure the host cells. The article is proving that future research can probably pinpoint the cause of many more types of cancer and gives hope that more cures will be discovered.

Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150126112243.htm

Scientists crack genetic code of tsetse fly

 

    According to MediLexicon International's article, A 10-year project involving more than 140 scientists around the world has resulted in the successful sequencing of the genetic code of the tsetse fly "Glossina morsitans". The fly is the sole carrier of African sleeping sickness or trypanosomiasis, a disease that threatens millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa and devastates livestock. An estimated 70 million people in across sub-Saharan Africa are at risk for sleeping sickness, which occurs in two stages.

 



    The first stage of infection causes fever, headaches, aching joints and itching. The second stage, when the parasite crosses the blood-brain barrier, causes confusion, poor co-ordination and the sleep problems that give the disease its name. Without treatment, African sleeping sickness is fatal. Also, diagnosis and treatment are difficult, and require specially trained staff to administer them. And while drugs exist, they are expensive and have many undesirable side effects. In livestock, trypanosome infection causes anemia and weight loss, which can lead to death. The result is billions of dollars of livestock lost every year. Although the infection is not found in the United States, historically, it has been a serious public health problem in some regions of sub-Saharan Africa (Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan). By unraveling the genetic code of the tsetse fly, researchers have essentially produced a "parts list" of the organism. The blueprint contains codes for all the 12,000 genes that control protein activity in the fly. Giving scientists access to the blueprint is expected to speed up research into the fly's unusual biology and lead to new methods and strategies for controlling the fly.

 

 

     It is interesting to read how the tsetse fly genome comprises around 366 million letters of code, which is about one tenth of the size of the human genome. Its also unique in that unlike other flies the tsetse only gives birth to few offspring at a time, and each fly only yields a small amount of genetic material. Tsetse fly is highly unusual among insects in that they have developed unique partnerships with bacteria for several aspects of their biology, and they give birth to live young that have developed to a large size by feeding on specialised glands in the mother. It's exdrodinary how sleepiness sickness is caused by microscopic parasites of the species Trypanosoma brucei. It is hoped the genome map of the tsetse fly will help scientists understand more about evolutionary biology.

 

For more information on the parasites that cause sleeping sickness via flies, you can vist http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/our-work/medical-issues/sleeping-sickness