PURPOSE To identify host-tissue amoeba interactions that may be important in the pathogenesis of Acanthamoeba keratitis, the ability of the opportunistic pathogen Acanthamoeba polyphaga to bind various components of the extracellular matrix (collagen type IV, laminin, or fibronectin) was examined in vitro. METHODS A polyphaga, isolated from a case of human amoebic keratitis, was used in the s...

An amoeboid organism, Physarum, exhibits rich spatiotemporal oscillatory behavior and various computational capabilities. Previously, the authors created a recurrent neurocomputer incorporating the amoeba as a computing substrate to solve optimization problems. In this paper, considering the amoeba to be a network of oscillators coupled such that they compete for constant amounts of resources, ...

Mitochondria of amoeba Acanthamoeba castellanii in addition to the conventional cytochrome pathway possess, like plant mitochondria, a cyanide-resistant alternative quinol oxidase. In mitochondria isolated from amoeba batch culture grown temporarily at low temperature (6 degrees C), higher respiration was accompanied by lower coupling parameters as compared to control culture (grown at 28 degre...

Amoeboid protists that harbor bacterial pathogens are of significant interest as potential reservoirs of disease-causing organisms in the environment, but little is known about them in marine and other saline environments. We enriched amoeba cultures from sediments from four sites in the New England estuarine system of Mt. Hope Bay, Massachusetts and from sediments from six sites in the Great S...

Cytoplasm has been isolated from single amoeba (Chaos carolinensis) in physiological solutions similar to rigor, contraction, and relaxation solutions designed to control the contractile state of vertebrate striated muscle . Contractions of the isolated cytoplasm are elicited by free calcium ion concentrations above ca . 7 .0 x 10-' M. Amoeba cytoplasmic contractility has been cycled repeatedly...

As part of designing and building the Amoeba distributed operating system, we have come up with a simple set of mechanisms for process management that allows downloading, process migration, checkpointing, remote debugging and emulation of alien operating system interfaces. The basic process management facilities are realized by the Amoeba Kernel and can be augmented by user-space services: Debu...

These are Acanthamoeba spp., Balamuthia mandrillaris (the only known species of Balamuthia), Naegleria fowleri (sometimes considered not to be an amoeba at all, but more closely related to Leishmania and Trypanosoma) and Sappinia pedata. They are distinct from the more famous Entamoeba histolytica (an obligate anaerobic parasite which can cause amoebiasis, amoebic dysentery and amoebic liver ab...

Many microscopic-based epidemiological surveys on the prevalence of human intestinal pathogenic and non-pathogenic protozoa including intestinal amoeba performed in Iran show a high prevalence of human intestinal amoeba in different parts of Iran. Such epidemiological studies on amoebiasis are confusing, mainly due to recently appreciated distinction between the Entamoeba histolytica, E. dispar...

We characterized the interaction of Acanthamoeba actophorin, a member of ADF/cofilin family, with filaments of amoeba and rabbit skeletal muscle actin. The affinity is about 10 times higher for muscle actin filaments (Kd = 0.5 microM) than amoeba actin filaments (Kd = 5 microM) even though the affinity for muscle and amoeba Mg-ADP-actin monomers (Kd = 0.1 microM) is the same (Blanchoin, L., and...