background: geothermal waters could be suitable niches for thermophilic free living amoebae includ­ing naegleria and hartmannella . ardebil province, northwest iran is popular for having many hot springs for recreational and health purposes activity. the present research is the first molecular based investigation regarding the presence of naegleria and hartmannella in the hot springs of ardebil...

Our laboratory in The Gambia, West Africa, performs Koga agar (1.5% bacteriological agar, 0.5% sodium chloride, 0.5% meat extract, 0.1% bacteriological peptone) culture for larvae of strongyle nematodes on human fecal samples for which parasitological investigation has been requested. We have recovered freeliving amoebae (FLA) from human fecal specimens on two occasions over a period of 9 month...

Free-ling amoebae (FLA) including Acanthamoeba spp., Naegleria fowleri, Balamuthia mandrillaris and Sappinia pedata, can cause opportunistic infections leading to severe brain pathologies. Human infections with pathogenic FLA have been increasingly documented in many countries. In Switzerland, thus far, the occurrence and distribution of potentially pathogenic FLA has not been investigated. Swi...

Forty eyewash units were sampled for protozoa, bacteria, and fungi. Total heterotrophic bacterial counts on nutrient agar and R2A agar (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, Mich.) ranged from 0 to 10(5) CFU/ml, with Pseudomonas spp. being the most frequently isolated. Total counts of 10(4) and 10(8) cells per ml were obtained with the acridine orange staining procedure. All samples were examined for Le...

OBJECTIVE To our knowledge, there is no study dealing with the prevalence of free-living amoebas (FLA) in water sources in Turkey, previous studies were mostly case presentations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of FLA from tap water and natural water sources in different parts of the city. METHODS In the study, 250 samples were collected from the city centre, d...

BACKGROUND Poor hygiene will provide good condition for corneal infections by opportunistic free-living amoebae (FLA) in soft contact lens wearers. In the present study an amoebic keratitis due to Hartmannella has been recognized in a 22-year-old girl with a history of improper soft contact lens use. She had unilateral keratitis on her left eye. Her clinical signs were eye pain, redness, blurre...

Evidence of associations between free-living amoebas and human disease has been increasing in recent years. Knowledge about phylogenetic relationships that may be important for the understanding of pathogenicity in the genera involved is very limited at present. Consequently, we have begun to study these relationships and report here on the phylogeny of Hartmannella vermiformis, a free-living a...

Free-living amoebae are increasingly being recognized to serve as vehicles of dispersal for various bacterial human pathogens and as hosts for a variety of obligate bacterial endocytobionts. Several Chlamydia-like Acanthamoeba endocytobionts constituting the recently proposed family Parachlamydiaceae are of special interest as potential human pathogens. In this study coccoid bacterial endocytob...