Reconsidering the underestimated burden caused by neglected tropical diseases

It is generally acknowledged that the burden caused by neglected tropical diseases needs to be reassessed. Not only are there several important diseases unaccounted for, but new information suggests they have a more substantial impact on health than initially thought. Looking at the tropical diseases as a group makes sense: they tend to cluster in the same poor populations and, to make progress with their control, they will have to be dealt with in an integrated manner. Measuring the effect of such integrated control is likely to reveal the real impact of tropical diseases on human health and wellbeing.     

Metalloproteins and neuronal death

Neurodegenerative diseases include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease that are very common and other diseases that are notorious but occur less often such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In each case a protein is closely linked to the pathology of these diseases. These proteins include alpha-synuclein, the prion protein and Aβ. Despite first being discovered because of aggregates of these amyloidogenic proteins found in the brains of patients, these proteins all exist in the healthy brain where their normal function involves binding of metals. Recognition of these proteins as metalloproteins implies that the diseases they are associated with are possibly diseases with altered metal metabolism at their heart. This review considers the evidence that cell death in these diseases involves not just the aggregated proteins but also the metals they bind.     

吸血蠓及其传播的疾病

吸血蠓广泛分布世界各地,其危害不仅在于刺吸人畜等动物血液,而且是多种疾病的传播媒介。了解吸血蠓及其传播的疾病,对有效预防和控制吸血蠓及蠓媒病具有重要意义。     

Travelling Companions: Emerging Diseases of People, Animals and Plants Along the Malawi-Mozambique Border

Humans, animals and plants suffer from similar types of diseases (e.g., fungal, viral etc.). These can “emerge” as new diseases by expanding their geographical range or by jumping species (from plants to plants, or from animals to humans). Emerging diseases place an additional burden on developing countries which are often struggling to manage the diseases they already have. New diseases spread through weather, insects or other vectors, or by the movement of people, animals or goods. This study examines the role of cross-border travel in the spread of diseases. A survey of travelers and of residents along the Malawi-Mozambique border found that most cross it frequently and that they rarely travel empty-handed, often taking plants and animals with them. People also cross borders seeking medical attention. Attempting to limit travel would hamper an already struggling economy, where many people make a living by producing, processing or transporting plants and animals for food. Cross border travel per se may pose slight danger for the spread of diseases, if governments can collaborate on sharing information about the status of diseases within their border.     

Proteomic approaches for studying human parenchymal lung diseases

Parenchymal lung diseases comprise a wide variety of diseases, with different etiologies, pathogeneses and prognoses. This perspective provides an overview of two different disease types: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is related to smoking, is one of the leading causes of chronic morbidity and mortality around the world, being characterized by airway obstruction and parenchymal lung damage (emphysema). Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis of unknown etiology is classified as one of the most important idiopathic interstitial pneumonias and is connected to patchy but progressive lung fibrosis. Both diseases are generally diagnosed late and respond poorly to medical therapies. Although numerous biomarkers have been proposed for these diseases, they have not been validated or implemented into clinical practice. This perspective emphasizes some typical features of these diseases with different types of lung damage, how they are reflected in different samples, as well as potential advances and problems of current and future nonbiased proteomic approaches.     

Fingerprinting the diseased prostate: associations between BPH and prostate cancer

Two of the most common diseases which occur in ageing men relate to their prostate. BPH and prostate cancer are prevalent diseases which have an impact on most men as they age. The advent of gene expression analysis has provided an opportunity to examine these diseases in a novel fashion. These analyses, to date, have revealed associations between these two diseases which have not been previously identified. These commonalities include global genetic changes which occur throughout the prostates in individuals with these diseases. Understanding the fingerprints of these diseases is providing novel markers and treatment strategies for both BPH and prostate cancer.     

Ill nature: Disease hotspots as threats to biodiversity

Diseases are part of the natural world, but human activities may affect and disrupt the natural dynamics of diseases, threatening wildlife species and human welfare. We listed the number of species threatened by diseases and compiled their distributional ranges. Based on such data we identify global disease hotspots, regions where disrupted disease dynamics threaten to decimate several species into extinction. The number of species threatened by disease may increase, and climate change may act synergistically increasing the severity of disease incidence in the hotspots, and drive the emergence of new disease hotspots. Until now diseases were thought to play a secondary role in the biodiversity extinction crisis, but the global threat scenario is so dynamic that if we do not bring diseases to the forefront of conservation actions and policies, they may not only bring species into extinction but they may also affect human populations as well.     

Bacterial diseases of crabs: a review

Bacterial diseases of crabs are manifested as bacteremias caused by organisms such as Vibrio, Aeromonas, and a Rhodobacteriales-like organism or tissue and organ tropic organisms such as chitinoclastic bacteria, Rickettsia intracellular organisms, Chlamydia-like organism, and Spiroplasma. This paper provides general information about bacterial diseases of both marine and freshwater crabs. Some bacteria pathogens such as Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio vulnificus occur commonly in blue crab haemolymph and should be paid much attention to because they may represent potential health hazards to human beings because they can cause serious diseases when the crab is consumed as raw sea food. With the development of aquaculture, new diseases associated with novel pathogens such as spiroplasmas and Rhodobacteriales-like organisms have appeared in commercially exploited crab species in recent years. Many potential approaches to control bacterial diseases of crab will be helpful and practicable in aquaculture.     

Royal Society discussion meeting: utilising the genome sequence of parasitic protozoa

Protozoan parasites cause some of the world's most important diseases. Genome sequencing information is rapidly being acquired and combined with new developments in functional genome analysis to transform our understanding of parasites, and to enable new approaches to combating the diseases they cause.     

Multifactorial diseases: a nightmare for the geneticist

Common diseases are often familial, but they do not show in most families, a simple pattern of inheritance. In a few families these diseases may be caused by a mutation in a single gene. In most families these diseases are multifactorial, they result from a complex interaction between a genetic component which is often polygenic and many environmental factors. Two major, model free, methods are used to locate and identify susceptibility genes that predispose to multifactorial diseases. The first is a non parametric linkage analysis that relies on affected sib pairs, or an affected pedigree member, the second method is association studies which looks for increase frequency of particular alleles or genotypes in affected compared with unaffected individuals in the population. Most of the results have not been replicated, identifying susceptibility genes is proving much more difficult than most geneticists imagined 20 years ago. The main reason for this irreproducibility is genetic heterogeneity.     

Inhibitors of dihydrofolate reductase in Leishmania and trypanosomes

The protozoan diseases leishmaniasis, Chagas' disease and African trypanosomiasis are major health problems in many countries, particularly developing countries, and there are few drugs available to treat these diseases. Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitors have been used successfully in the treatment of a number of other diseases such as cancer, malaria and bacterial infections; however they have not been used for the treatment of these diseases. This article summarises studies on leishmanial and trypanosomal DHFR inhibitor development and evaluation. Possible mechanisms of resistance to DHFR inhibitors are also discussed.     

Isolation System for General Hospitals

A four-category isolation system has been used for three years. It is based on the principle that different precautions are needed against different diseases. There are three types of source isolation and one of protective isolation. Coloured door cards indicate the main precautions on the front and the main diseases to which they apply on the back. The system encourages application of effective precautions without waste of effort on those that are irrelevant to some diseases.     

Applying population-genetic models in theoretical evolutionary epidemiology

Much of the existing theory for the evolutionary biology of infectious diseases uses an invasion analysis approach. In this Ideas and Perspectives article, we suggest that techniques from theoretical population genetics can also be profitably used to study the evolutionary epidemiology of infectious diseases. We highlight four ways in which population-genetic models provide benefits beyond those provided by most invasion analyses: (i) they can make predictions about the rate of pathogen evolution; (ii) they explicitly draw out the mechanistic way in which the epidemiological dynamics feed into evolutionary change, and thereby provide new insights into pathogen evolution; (iii) they can make predictions about the evolutionary consequences of non-equilibrium epidemiological dynamics; (iv) they can readily incorporate the effects of multiple host dynamics, and thereby account for phenomena such as immunological history and/or host co-evolution.     

The COVID-19 epidemic and other notifiable infectious diseases in China

Many infection control measures have been implemented to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 epidemic on the other notifiable infectious diseases in China, including respiratory infectious diseases, diseases transmitted through the digestive tract and animal-borne diseases. Compared with 2019, the overall decline rate of respiratory infectious diseases in 2020 is the highest (60–90%), and the diseases transmitted by the digestive tract and animal-borne diseases are similar at 20–30%. Both hepatitis and sexually transmitted diseases decreased significantly in February, and there were basically no significant changes in other months compared with previous years. The series of measures taken by China government to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 are also very effective in preventing the spread of respiratory infectious diseases. But they also have a certain degree of prevention against notifiable infectious diseases spread by other routes.     

The ecology of tick-borne diseases

Zoonotic diseases are major causes of infection related morbidity and mortality worldwide. Of the various arthropods capable of transmitting pathogens that cause such diseases to humans, ticks, which are vectors of more kinds of pathogens than any other group of invertebrate, have become an increasing focus of attention. This is particularly the case in the temperate northern hemisphere where they are a significant vector of human disease. Here, we provide an overview of the complex ecological systems defining the various epidemiological cycles of tick-borne diseases. We highlight the abiotic and biotic factors influencing the establishment and persistence of tick populations and their associated pathogens. Furthermore, we emphasize the dynamic nature of such systems, especially when they are under the influence of both small and large-scale anthropogenic changes to the environment. Although a great deal of work has been done on ticks and the diseases which they transmit, the very dynamism of the system means that new factors are continually arising which shift the epidemiological pattern within specific areas. We therefore consider that more detailed, long-term (i.e. at least 10 years), multidisciplinary studies need to be carried out to define why and how these pattern shifts take place and to determine their public health significance.     

Microsporidiosis: human diseases and diagnosis

Microsporidia are considered opportunistic pathogens in humans because they are most likely to cause diseases if the immune status of a host is such that the infection cannot be controlled. A wide spectrum of diseases has been reported among persons infected with microsporidia and different diagnostic techniques have been developed during the last decade.     

Therapeutic vaccines for chronic diseases: successes and technical challenges

Chronic, non-communicable diseases are the major cause of death and disability worldwide and have replaced infectious diseases as the major burden of society in large parts of the world. Despite the complexity of chronic diseases, relatively few predisposing risk factors have been identified by the World Health Organization. Those include smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure as the cause of many of these chronic conditions. Here, we discuss several examples of vaccines that target these risk factors with the aim of preventing the associated diseases and some of the challenges they face.     

Modelling insect diseases as functional predators

Abstract. Many larval diseases of insects allow no recovery once infected. Furthermore, infected individuals are not able to develop into adults and will not therefore reproduce. A simple modelling approach emphasizes the fact that, accordingly, the agents that cause these diseases are functionally predators. It is important to make this distinction and to be cautious in applying inference drawn from models of parasites to these diseases. Sublethal effects are well known in these insect larval diseases, and models show that they have important dynamical implications. Sublethal effects have received less attention in predator–prey interactions, but their functional relationship with insect diseases emphasizes that nonmortality effects of predators may have correspondingly important dynamical implications.     

The potential role of exosomes in the diagnosis and therapy of ischemic diseases

In the past, exosomes have been thought of as cellular dust. Today, they are thought to be carriers of real biomarkers and intercellular biological information. The composition of exosomes differs according to their source, and the subsequent information they carry, such as protein, microRNA or mRNA, may also be different. Recent studies have demonstrated that exosomes in ischemic diseases can help to make an early diagnosis, and in cellular experiments and animal models, exosomes promote angiogenesis, restrain cell apoptosis and reduce inflammation, among other actions, to protect ischemic organs. There is evidence that these protective effects are related to microRNAs in exosomes. In this review, we discuss the use of exosomes for early diagnosis of ischemic diseases and recent advances in the therapeutic use of exosomes in cell and mammalian models of ischemic diseases.     

SNMDA: A novel method for predicting microRNA‐disease associations based on sparse neighbourhood

miRNAs are a class of small noncoding RNAs that are associated with a variety of complex biological processes. Increasing studies have shown that miRNAs have close relationships with many human diseases. The prediction of the associations between miRNAs and diseases has thus become a hot topic. Although traditional experimental methods are reliable, they could only identify a limited number of associations as they are time‐consuming and expensive. Consequently, great efforts have been made to effectively predict reliable disease‐related miRNAs based on computational methods. In this study, we present a novel approach to predict the potential microRNA‐disease associations based on sparse neighbourhood. Specifically, our method takes advantage of the sparsity of the miRNA‐disease association network and integrates the sparse information into the current similarity matrices for both miRNAs and diseases. To demonstrate the utility of our method, we applied global LOOCV, local LOOCV and five‐fold cross‐validation to evaluate our method, respectively. The corresponding AUCs are 0.936, 0.882 and 0.934. Three types of case studies on five common diseases further confirm the performance of our method in predicting unknown miRNA‐disease associations. Overall, results show that SNMDA can predict the potential associations between miRNAs and diseases effectively.