Host immune response to Toxoplasma gondii and Ascaris lumbricoides in a highly endemic area: evidence of parasite co-immunomodulation properties influencing the outcome of both infections

Candidate gene analysis of ocular toxoplasmosis in Brazil: evidence for a role for toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9)

“…Written informed consent was obtained from patients according to the guidelines of the Ethical Committee of Fiocruz. All individuals classified as affected were T. gondiiseropositive and presented with posterior retinal/retinochoroidal non active uveitis scars lesions as described (Bahia-Oliveira et al 2009). Transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) power approximations (Knapp 1999) showed that the 60 families had ≥ 75% power to detect allelic association at an odds ratio of 3 at p = 0.01 for markers with minor allele frequencies (MAF) ≥ 0.3.…”

Immunological and Immunogenetic Parameters on the Diversity of Ocular Toxoplasmosis: Evidence to Support Morphological Criteria to Classify Retinal/Retinochoroidal Scar Lesions in Epidemiologic Surveys

“…Those classified from grade one to grade three were considered to be definitively caused by T. gondii infection [4]. We found the authors' initiative very important, and with the same objective, we have proposed some descriptive criteria to classify the most commonly found retinal/retinochoroidal lesions from our population-based work in Campos dos Goytacazes [7,10,11]. However, as mentioned earlier, the nature of the toxoplasmic retinal/retinochoroidal scar lesions, or even active lesions described during the fundoscopic examination, is subjective.…”

“…As a consequence, identifying the actual prevalence of ocular toxoplasmosis in areas highly endemic for T. gondii in Brazil constitutes a challenge in practice and may be underestimated. In fact, the existence of retinal/retinochoroidal scars most likely healed from non-typical toxoplasmic retinal/retinochoroidal lesions have been reported in endemic areas [4,7,[9][10][11]13] as discussed later in this section.…”

“…Two groups working independently in Rio de Janeiro state, one from the State University of North Fluminense (UENF) at Campos dos Goytacazes and another from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, have conducted epidemiological and human immunogenetic studies that can be directly compared because the same criteria for ocular scar lesions classification was adopted for both [9,11]. The criteria for characterizing scar lesions that were presumably caused by T.…”

“…The lesions were termed as type A, type B or type C by the Campos dos Goytacazes group [7,11] and as type 1, type 2 or type 3, respectively, by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation group [9]. The Oswaldo Cruz group investigated the retinochoroiditis caused by T. gondii infection in a rural area (Santa Rita) of Barra Mansa, located at southern part of the Rio de Janeiro state [9].…”