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Background:Cryptosporidiosis is an important worldwide opportunistic infection. It causes severe lifethreatening diarrhea in immunocompromised patients and has a carcinogenic predisposition in chronic cases. Until now, there are no available drugs that can control this serious effect on the ileocecal region. Coconut oil (CO) is rich in many saturated fatty acids like lauric acid (LA) which has many uses in the field of traditional medicine, and also showed anticancer activity although its mechanism of action is not well studied. Objective: To assess the efficacy of CO in immunosuppressed mice with chronic cryptosporidiosis. Material and Methods: Forty white Albino mice of CDI strain were immunosuppressed and divided into 4 groups. GI: non-infected (negative control); GII: infected for 60 d, and non-treated (positive control); GIII: infected for 60 d then Nitazoxanide (NTZ) treated; GIV: infected for 60 d then CO treated. Parasitological, histopathological, and immunohistochemical (IHC) studies were conducted at the ileocecal region to estimate the parasite burden, caspase-3 mediator of apoptosis, and CDX2 biomarker of tumorigenesis. Results: Parasitological examination showed marked reduction of parasite load in GIV compared to GII, and GIII. Histopathological examination showed focal villous tip erosions and mild villous core infiltration by mononuclear inflammatory cells in GIII, while GIV showed a mostly preserved villous pattern with mild villous core inflammation. Immunohistochemical examination showed the best results in GIV in which there was significant positive nuclear staining in acini for CDX2 with nearly negative cytoplasmic staining in acini for caspase-3. Conclusion: Coconut oil is a natural product with significant anti-Cryptosporidium effects and a promising ability to decrease the incidence of dysplastic changes in chronic cryptosporidiosis.

Conclusion:MSCs have an antiinflammatory effect and prolong the survival of T. gondii infected mice; however, they have a non-significant effect on brain cyst count.El-Hosseiny et al., Afro-Egypt J Infect Endem Dis 2020;10(2):129-140 https://aeji.journals.ekb.eg/