Vertical transmission of the protozoan parasite, Neospora caninum is highly efficient and can take two forms - endogenous transplacental transmission resulting from activation of the quiescent bradyzoite stage during pregnancy or exogenous transplacental transmission resulting from ingestion of oocysts during pregnancy. Calves born carrying infection derived from either endogenous or exogenous ...

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite that can infect most warm-blooded animals and cause severe and life-threatening disease in developing fetuses and in immune-compromised patients. Although Toxoplasma was discovered over 100 years ago, we are only now beginning to appreciate the importance of the role that parasite modulation of its host has on parasite growth, br...

Ultrathin sections of tissue cysts isolated from the brain of Toxoplasma gondii infected mice were submitted to two different methodologies derived from the periodic acid - Schiff's reagent (PAS) technique. The use of osmium tetroxide vapor as a developing agent of the aldehyde oxidation to reveal polysaccharides with periodic acid resulted in positive reaction in amylopectin granules in bradyz...

Oral-route infection with Toxoplasma gondii sporozoites or tachyzoites leads to the rapid spread of quick-replicating cytolytic tachyzoites throughout the whole body. Toxoplasma easily crosses the blood-retina, encephalic and placental barriers. The acute phase of this infection lasts for less than around ten days. The parasite causes a very strong type-1 response focused on the interferon-gamm...

Parasitic protozoa such as the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii progress through their life cycle in response to stimuli in the environment or host organism. Very little is known about how proliferating tachyzoites reprogram their expressed genome in response to stresses that prompt development into latent bradyzoite cysts. We have previously linked histone acetylation with the expression of stag...

Tachyzoites (VEG strain) that emerge from host cells infected with Toxoplasma gondii sporozoites proliferate relatively fast and double their number every 6 h. This rate of growth is intrinsic, as neither the number of host cells invaded nor host cell type appears to influence emergent tachyzoite replication. Fast tachyzoite growth was not persistent, and following approximately 20 divisions, t...