Toxoplasmosis is a serious health problem in humans and animals resulting from obligatory intracellular invasion of reticuloendothelial tissue by Toxoplasma gondii. The profound pathologic effect of toxoplasmosis is confined to nervous tissue, but many other organs, including the liver and spleen, are insulted. Many molecules like caspase-3, CD3, and CD138 are implicated in the tissue immune response in a trial to alleviate hazardous toxoplasmosis impact. This study aimed to investigate the effect of chronic toxoplasmosis on the liver and spleen tissues of mice using biochemical and histopathological techniques and to detect the activity and level of expression of caspase-3, CD3, and CD138 in these tissues using immunohistochemical labeling. Compared with normal control, altered normal histological features accompanied by inflammatory reaction were recorded in hepatosplenic reticuloendothelial tissues in chronically infected mice. The biochemical profile of the liver has been changed in the form of increased liver enzymes, and oxidative stress has been evidenced by elevated nitric oxide (NO) concentration in liver homogenate. The levels of caspase3, CD3, and CD138 were markedly expressed in the liver and spleen of infected mice. Our findings revealed the persistent effect of latent toxoplasmosis on the host’s histological architecture, metabolic, and immunological profile, creating a continued challenging host-parasite relationship.
The hygiene hypothesis has been implicated in the dramatic increase in autoimmune and allergic diseases noticed in recent decades, especially in developed countries. This growth was associated with lesser exposure to diverse immunoregulatory infectious agents. This hypothesis has been proved by many potent epidemiological and experimental studies. The results of these studies along with the analysis of the western world's microbiome helped us to have a greater idea about microorganisms shared in the hygiene hypothesis, as well as their main mechanisms that have an effect on the immune system. Protozoal infections have been proved to have remarkable immunomodulatory changes in different autoimmune diseases. Helminths and their derivatives were proved to have a protective role. Helminths' broad immunomodulatory effects have been tested in clinical trials of autoimmune diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type-1 diabetes. In this review, we discussed particular parasitic infections and their immunomodulatory effects on some autoimmune diseases.
Parasitic diseases have significant global economic, environmental, and public health impacts. In recent years, stem cells therapy has become a very promising and advanced scientific research topic. Since stem cells are the primary, unspecialized mother of all cells, they have the ability to differentiate into specialized cells. Besides, they have a remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body to replace the damaged tissues. Recently, researchers experimentally investigated the application of these cells to treat parasitic diseases such as schistosomiasis, malaria, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and toxoplasmosis with improvement of the function of the involved tissue and organs. This review summarized the up-to-date application of stem cell technology for treatment and/or protection against parasitic diseases. We aimed to highlight how these approaches affected the parasite-host interactions and contribute to the identification of novel targets for therapies and vaccines.
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