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As part of an international effort to develop vaccines for Theileria lestoquardi, we undertook a limited screen to test T. lestoquardi orthologues of antigens recognised by CD8+ T lymphocyte responses against T. annulata and T. parva in cattle. Five MHC defined sheep were immunized by live T. lestoquardi infection and their CD8+ T lymphocyte responses determined. Thirteen T. lestoquardi orthologues of T. parva and T. annulata genes, previously shown to be targets of CD8+ T lymphocyte responses of immune cattle, were expressed in autologous fibroblasts and screened for T cell recognition using an IFNγ assay. Genes encoding T. lestoquardi antigens Tl8 (putative cysteine proteinase, 349 aa) or Tl9 (hypothetical secreted protein, 293 aa) were recognise by T cells from one animal that displayed a unique MHC class I genotype. Antigenic 9-mer peptide epitopes of Tl8 and Tl9 were identified through peptide scans using CD8+ T cells from the responding animal. These experiments identify the first T. lestoquardi antigens recognised by CD8+ T cell responses linked to specific MHC class I alleles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Chagas disease is a zoonotic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi and dogs are one of the main domestic reservoirs. Materials and Methods: One molecular (OligoC-TesT, Coris Bioconcept) and one serological (T. cruzi-Detect, Inbios) rapid tests were evaluated as infection markers for T. cruzi in 102 dogs living in eight villages endemic for Chagas in Costa Rica. Results: T. cruzi-Detect performed well as screening tool with 23.3% positive samples. The large number of invalid results (66.7%) observed in samples tested with OligoC-TesT precluded assessing the use of this new method as epidemiological tool to detect T. cruzi infection in dogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Theileria infection of bovine leucocytes induces uncontrolled proliferation and a transformed phenotype comparable to tumour cells. Infected cells have many characteristics of activated leucocytes and use autocrine loops to augment proliferation. We have shown previously that, in infected B cells, PI3-K controls a granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) autocrine loop to increase both proliferation and activation of the activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factor. We show here that the same infected B cells also use a tumour necrosis factor (TNF) alpha autocrine loop that again contributes to proliferation and augments nuclear factor (NF)-κB activation. Interestingly, both pharmacological inhibition of TNF synthesis and neutralizing anti-TNF antibodies lead to a reduction in proliferation and a 50% drop in NF-κB activation, without inducing apoptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]