Disease relevance of Microsporidia

• Diagnosis of microsporidia keratitis by polymerase chain reaction [1].
• Current therapies for microsporidiosis include albendazole which is a benzimidazole that inhibits microtubule assembly and is effective against several microsporidia, including the Encephalitozoon species, but is less effective against E. bieneusi [2].
• No Vibrio cholerae, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, microsporidia, adenovirus or small round virus were detected [3].

High impact information on Microsporidia

• Thalidomide significantly increased the villus height/crypt depth ratio (1.95 to 2.07; P = 0.045) and number of abnormal forms of microsporidia (P < 0.01) [4].
• Microsporidia are related to Fungi: evidence from the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II and other proteins [5].
• Phylogenetic analyses of these and other RPB1 sequences strongly support the notion that Microsporidia are not early-diverging eukaryotes but instead are specifically related to Fungi [5].
• Pot1-like proteins have now been found in plants, animals, yeasts, and microsporidia [6].
• Patients with no pathogen had significantly longer duration of symptoms prior to presentation; however, patients with microsporidia had significantly greater malabsorption of fat, D-xylose, vitamin B12, and significantly lower serum levels of zinc [7].

Biological context of Microsporidia

• Congruent evidence from alpha-tubulin and beta-tubulin gene phylogenies for a zygomycete origin of microsporidia [8].
• The PCR-SSCP, when performed at 20 degrees C, generated 2 bands in distinctive, reproducible patterns in polyacrylamide gels for each species of microsporidia tested, regardless of genotype or isolate [9].
• Faeces of immunocompromised patients are often contaminated with the chitin-containing spores of microsporidia and Candida, which exclude the use of the chitin-specific fluorescent brightener Calcofluor white M2R for the identification of microsporidian spores [10].

Anatomical context of Microsporidia

• Arprinocid, metronidazole, minocycline, doxycycline, itraconazole, and difluoromethylornithine were not evaluable, since concentrations that inhibited microsporidia were also toxic for fibroblasts [11].
• PCR amplification and species determination of microsporidia in formalin-fixed feces after immunomagnetic separation [12].
• Evidence of actin in the cytoskeleton of microsporidia [13].
• Growth of Trachipleistophora hominis (Microsporidia: Pleistophoridae) in C2,C12 mouse myoblast cells and response to treatment with albendazole [14].

Associations of Microsporidia with chemical compounds

• All 4 controls subsequently cleared microsporidia following open-labeled albendazole treatment [15].
• These results suggest that Calcofluor White M2R and Sytox Green stains, when used together, may facilitate studies to identify viable microsporidia [16].
• Addition of the L-arginine analogue, N3 monomethyl-L-arginine (NMMA) at concentrations of 50, 100 or 250 uM significantly inhibited nitrite synthesis and prevented microsporidia killing [17].
• The expression of cytosolic AP-P in sporogonial stages of microsporidia may suggest a key role in the attack of proline-containing peptides as a prerequisite to long-duration biosynthesis of structural proteins destined to the sporal polar tube [18].
• In addition, individual octospores and megaspores were isolated into groups of 8-20 from methanol-fixed and Calcofluor-stained smears of the infected ants for subsequent PCR analysis by the laser pressure catapulting function of a position ablative laser microbeam microscope, a technique applied for the first time to research of microsporidia [19].

Gene context of Microsporidia

• Functional characterization of a putative aquaporin from Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a microsporidia pathogenic to humans [20].
• We found PCR-SSCP to be an easy and reproducible method for speciation of human microsporidia when the primer pair PMP1 and PMP2 is used [9].
• The analysis also positioned alpha-actinin of the fungi Encephalitozoo cuniculi close to the protozoa, supporting the suggestion that microsporidia are early eukaryotes [21].
• However, no previous studies have explicitly determined the reason(s) why the artifactual allegiance of microsporidia and archaebacteria ("M + A") is recovered by all phylogenetic methods, including maximum likelihood, a method that is supposed to be resistant to classical LBA [22].
• We have sequenced eIF-2gamma gene fragments from representative diplomonads, parabasalia, and microsporidia and used these new sequences together with new archaebacterial homologues to examine the phylogenetic position of eIF-2gamma within the GTPase superfamily [23].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Microsporidia

• We recommended that patients with chronic, intermittent diarrhea and CD4 counts of < 100 cells/mm3 be further evaluated for microsporidia by modified trichrome staining of stool and light and electron microscopy of small bowel biopsy specimens [24].

References