Enterocytozoon bieneusi, a microsporidian parasite, has been recognized since 1985 as an agent of intestinal microsporidiosis leading to malabsorption syndrome, diarrhea, and weight loss in AIDS patients. Recently, however, we have identified E. bieneusi spores in the sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage, and stool samples of an AIDS patient with a 2-year history of intestinal microsporidiosis. The s...

Microsporidiosis are diseases caused by opportunistic intracellular fungi in immunosuppressed individuals, as well as in transplanted patients, the elderly and children, among others. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia and decreased T cell response, neutrophil function, humoral immunity failure, increasing the susceptibility to infections. Here, we inve...

A prospective observational study was conducted to determine the prevalence and the clinical impact of intestinal parasitic infections in diarrheal illness among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected children hospitalized with diarrhea in Bangkok, Thailand. Stool samples were examined for intestinal parasites using a simple smear method, a formalin-ether concentration method, a modified acid-fast sta...

Microsporidia are a cause of emerging and opportunistic infections in humans and animals. Although two drugs are currently being used to treat microsporidiosis, concerns exist that albendazole is only selective for inhibiting some species of microsporidia that infect mammals, and fumagillin appears to have been found to be toxic. During a limited sequence survey of the Vittaforma corneae genome...

Fumagillin (dicyclohexylamine) is a natural antibiotic, secreted by Aspergillus fumigatus. It is used in veterinary medicine against microsporidiosis in bees and fish, as well as in human medicine for the treatment of intestinal amebiasis, microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis and intestinal microsporidiosis due to Enterocytozoon bieneusi in patients with AIDS and other types of immunodeficiency....

Microsporidia are parasitic protists of all classes of vertebrates and most invertebrates. They recently emerged as important infections in various immunosuppressed and immunocompetent patient populations. They are also important veterinary and agricultural pathogens. Current therapies for microsporidiosis include benzimidazoles, which bind tubulin-inhibiting microtubule assembly, and fumagilli...

Dicyclohexylamine (fumagillin), as an antibiotic produced by fermentation of Aspergillus fumigatus, is used in human medicine for the treatment of intestinal microsporidiosis in patients with HIV infection, intestinal amebiasis and microsporidial keratoconjunctivitis. In veterinary medicine, fumagillin is effective in suppressing microsporidiosis of bees and fish. In this study, the genotoxicit...

Veterinarians caring for companion animals may encounter microsporidia in various host species, and diagnosis and treatment of these fungal organisms can be particularly challenging. Fourteen microsporidial species have been reported to infect humans and some of them are zoonotic; however, to date, direct zoonotic transmission is difficult to document versus transit through the digestive tract....