IMPORTANCE Acanthamoeba keratitis is a debilitating eye disease that requires effective topical drug therapy. Currently, there is no standard in vitro test to evaluate anti-Acanthamoeba drugs. OBJECTIVE To develop a practical in vitro complete-kill assay to assess anti-Acanthamoeba drugs. DESIGN AND SETTING Isolates of Acanthamoeba strains (n = 15) evaluated in a clinical laboratory. An in ...

BACKGROUND Acanthamoeba spp. are free-living amoebae commonly found in the environmental sources such as water, soil, and air. This ubiquitous amoeba is the causative agent of amoebic keratitis (AK). The objective of the present study was to investigate the presence of Acanthamoeba spp. in water and soil sources in Ahvaz City, Khuzestan Province, southern Iran. METHODS In general, 110 samples...

Therapy against Acanthamoeba infections such as Granulomatous Amoebic Encephalitis (GAE) and Acanthamoeba Keratitis (AK), remains as an issue to be solved due to the existence of a cyst stage which is highly resistant to most chemical and physical agents. Recently, the activity of Olive Leaf Extracts (OLE) was demonstrated against Acanthamoeba species. However, the molecules involved in this ac...

BACKGROUND Blindness is caused by eye pathogens that include a free-living protist (Acanthamoeba castellanii, A. byersi, and/or other Acanthamoeba spp.), a fungus (Fusarium solani), and a bacterium (Chlamydia trachomatis). Hand-eye contact is likely a contributor to the spread of these pathogens, and so hand washing with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizers (when water is not availab...

The genus Acanthamoeba is an assemblage of approximately 20 named species of free-living amoebae inhabiting a wide range of ecological niches, and has a worldwide distribution. Individual Acanthamoeba have been isolated from soil, fresh and saltwater, humans, domestic and feral animals. In addition to natural habitats, Acanthamoeba has been identified as the cause of several diseases. It acts a...

Acanthamoeba is a free-living ameba that is found throughout the world and that causes encephalitis, keratitis, and cutaneous infections in humans. It has two stages in its life cycle: a trophic stage and a resistant cyst stage. We describe here the ability of Acanthamoeba cysts to survive desiccation for more than 20 years.

This paper aims to review the recent literature describing Acanthamoeba keratitis and outline current thoughts on pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment as well as currently emerging diagnostic and treatment modalities.

Members of the Mimiviridae family are large DNA viruses that infect Acanthamoeba cells. Here, we report the genome sequences of two new Mimiviridae family members, isolated from water samples from Shirakoma Pond and the mouth of the Arakawa River in Japan, with nearly complete genome sizes of 1,182,849 and 1,182,801 bp, respectively.