An experimental infection with the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi Levaditi, Nicolau et Schoen, 1923 was studied using a model of immunocompetent BALB/c mice and immunodeficient SCID mice. The course of infection after intraperitoneal inoculation of E. cuniculi spores was evaluated using the presence of spores in peritoneal macrophages as a criterion. First significant decrease in the p...

Introduction: Immunocompromised host has one or more defects in the normal defense mechanisms that protect against infectious agents. Microsporidia are group of protozoa characterized via obligate intracellular and spore formation, detected many hosts. Up till now, 1300 microsporidia species more, related to 150 genera, were, microsporidiosis caused by microsporidia. Objectives: To conduct Mole...

*Corresponding author: Tel: +81-11-747-2739, Fax: +81-11-7369476, E-mail: [email protected] Encephalitozoon cuniculi is an obligate intracellular protozoan that infects a wide range of mammalian hosts such as rabbits, rodents, dogs, other canids, and primates, including humans (1). Two reports have described the isolation of Encephalitozoon based on clinical materials obtained in Hokk...

BACKGROUND Microsporidia are intracellular parasites that are highly-derived relatives of fungi. They have compacted genomes and, despite a high rate of sequence evolution, distantly related species can share high levels of gene order conservation. To date, only two species have been analysed in detail, and data from one of these largely consists of short genomic fragments. It is therefore diff...

Down-regulation of the immune response in aging individuals puts this population at a potential risk against infectious agents. In-depth studies conducted in humans and mouse models have demonstrated that with increasing age, the T cell immune response against pathogens is compromised and response to vaccinations is subdued. In the present study, using a mouse model, we demonstrate that older a...