Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is a rapidly fatal infection caused by the free-living ameba Naegleria fowleri. The drug of choice in treating PAM is the antifungal antibiotic amphotericin B, but its use is associated with severe adverse effects. Moreover, few patients treated with amphotericin B have survived PAM. Therefore, fast-acting and efficient drugs are urgently needed for the ...

Acanthamoeba and Naegleria species are free-living amoebae (FLA) found in a large variety of natural habitats. The prevalence of such amoebae was determined from dust samples taken from public non-hospital internal environments with good standards of cleanliness from two campuses of the same University in the city of Santos (SP), Brazil, and where young and apparently healthy people circulate. ...

Free-living amoebae (FLA) belonging to Acanthamoeba and Sappinia genera as well as Balamuthia mandrillaris and Naegleria fowleri species are aerobic, mitochondriate, eukaryotic protists that occur worldwide and can potentially cause infections in humans and other animals (Visvesvara and Maguire, 2006; Visvesvara et al., 2007). Due to the fact that these amoebae have the ability to exist as free...

Mouse peritoneal macrophages activated by different immunomodulators (Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin or Propionibacterium acnes) destroy Naegleria fowleri amoebae by a contact-dependent process and by soluble cytolytic molecules secreted by macrophages in response to lipopolysaccharide. The goal of this study was to determine whether the arginine-dependent cytolytic mechanism whic...

A 7-year-old boy with no prior illness or altered immunity presented to the emergency department with a 36-hour history of fever (103.7°F), emesis, headache, and lethargy. The patient had a history of swimming in a local lake the week before presentation. Physical examination revealed nuchal rigidity. Computed tomography (CT) of the head was normal. A lumbar puncture revealed a cerebrospinal fl...

First discovered in 1899, Naegleria fowleri is a protist pathogen, known to infect the central nervous system and produce primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. The most distressing aspect is that the fatality rate has remained more than 95%, despite our advances in antimicrobial chemotherapy and supportive care. Although rare worldwide, most cases have been reported in the United States, Austral...

The protozoon Naegleria fowleri (N. fowleri) is a free-living amoeba that produces primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), which is an acute and frequently fatal infection of the central nervous system. We characterized the strains of N. fowleri isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of two cases presented in northwestern Mexico. The strains were isolated and cultured in 2% bactocasiton...

Naegleria fowleri was causative agent of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Accroding to the failure of treatment, several researches reported the activity of chemotherapeutic drugs against N. fowleri but we did not know the drug resistance of the amoebae. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of drugs (amphotericin B, artesunate, azithromycin, voriconazole, chlorpromazin...

Cry1Ac protoxin has potent mucosal and systemic adjuvant effects on antibody responses to proteins or polysaccharides. In this work, we examined whether Cry1Ac increased protective immunity against fatal Naegleria fowleri infection in mice, which resembles human primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. Higher immunoglobulin G (IgG) than IgA anti-N. fowleri responses were elicited in the serum and t...