Parasites, Hosts and Diseases

"amphotericin B"

Case Report

Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis: A Case Report: Minhua Chen, Wei Ruan, Lingling Zhang, Bangchuan Hu, Xianghong Yang; Korean J Parasitol 2019;57(3):291-294.
Published online June 30, 2019; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2019.57.3.291

Abstract
PDF

Primary amebic encephalitis (PAM) is a devastating central nervous system infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, a free-living amoeba, which can survive in soil and warm fresh water. Here, a 43-year-old healthy male was exposed to warm freshwater 5 days before the symptom onset. He rapidly developed severe cerebral edema before the diagnosis of PAM and was treated with intravenous conventional amphotericin B while died of terminal cerebral hernia finally. Comparing the patients with PAM who has similar clinical symptoms to those with other common types of meningoencephalitis, this infection is probably curable if treated early and aggressively. PAM should be considered in the differential diagnosis of purulent meningoencephalitis, especially in patients with recent freshwater-related activities during the hot season.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Enlightening the promising role of nanoparticle-based treatments against Naegleria fowleri-induced primary amoebic meningoencephalitis: A brain-eating disease
Sunita Jhulki, Biplab Bhowmik, Aparajita Pal
Microbial Pathogenesis.2025; 199: 107234. CrossRef
Naegleria fowleri Infections: Bridging Clinical Observations and Epidemiological Insights
Carmen Rîpă, Roxana Gabriela Cobzaru, Miruna Raluca Rîpă, Alexandra Maștaleru, Andra Oancea, Carmen Marinela Cumpăt, Maria Magdalena Leon
Journal of Clinical Medicine.2025; 14(2): 526. CrossRef
Naegleria fowleri: An Amoeba That Eats your Brain
Siddhi Suhas Shinde, Anuradha Prajapati, Sachin B. Narkhede, Shailesh Luhar
Research Journal of Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms and Technology.2025; : 37. CrossRef
Amoebicidal effect of chlorine dioxide gas against pathogenic Naegleria fowleri and Acanthamoeba polyphaga
Hae-Jin Sohn, A-Young Park, Jeong-Heon Lee, Kyu-Hwa Yun, Kyoung-Ju Song, Jong-Hyun Kim, Ho-Joon Shin
Parasitology Research.2024;[Epub] CrossRef
A scoping review on epidemiology and pathogenesis of death due to primary amoebic meningoencephalitis
Krishneswari Rajasekharan Nair Saraswathy
International Journal Of Community Medicine And Public Health.2024; 12(1): 598. CrossRef
Systematic Review of Brain-Eating Amoeba: A Decade Update
Mohd ‘Ammar Ihsan Ahmad Zamzuri, Farah Nabila Abd Majid, Massitah Mihat, Siti Salwa Ibrahim, Muhammad Ismail, Suriyati Abd Aziz, Zuraida Mohamed, Lokman Rejali, Hazlina Yahaya, Zulhizzam Abdullah, Mohd Rohaizat Hassan, Rahmat Dapari, Abd Majid Mohd Isa
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.2023; 20(4): 3021. CrossRef
Distribution and Current State of Molecular Genetic Characterization in Pathogenic Free-Living Amoebae
Alejandro Otero-Ruiz, Leobardo Daniel Gonzalez-Zuñiga, Libia Zulema Rodriguez-Anaya, Luis Fernando Lares-Jiménez, Jose Reyes Gonzalez-Galaviz, Fernando Lares-Villa
Pathogens.2022; 11(10): 1199. CrossRef
Photolysis of sodium chloride and sodium hypochlorite by ultraviolet light inactivates the trophozoites and cysts of Acanthamoeba castellanii in the water matrix
Beni J. M. Chaúque, Marilise B. Rott
Journal of Water and Health.2021; 19(1): 190. CrossRef
Drugs used for the treatment of cerebral and disseminated infections caused by free‐living amoebae
Alexandre Taravaud, Zineb Fechtali‐Moute, Philippe M. Loiseau, Sébastien Pomel
Clinical and Translational Science.2021; 14(3): 791. CrossRef
Death From Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis After Recreational Water Exposure During Recent Travel to India—Santa Clara County, California, 2020
Glenn R Harris, Ellora N Karmarkar, Rebecca Quenelle, Lyndsey Chaille, Jai Madhok, Vivian Tien, Jyoti Gupta, Seema Jain, Maria Liu, Shantanu Roy, Supriya Narasimhan, Akiko Kimura, Jennifer R Cope, Ibne Karim M Ali
Open Forum Infectious Diseases.2021;[Epub] CrossRef
Various brain-eating amoebae: the protozoa, the pathogenesis, and the disease
Hongze Zhang, Xunjia Cheng
Frontiers of Medicine.2021; 15(6): 842. CrossRef
Understanding the true burden of “Naegleria fowleri” (Vahlkampfiidae) in patients from Northern states of India: Source tracking and significance
Ashutosh Panda, Bijay Ranjan Mirdha, Neha Rastogi, Samander Kasuhik
European Journal of Protistology.2020; 76: 125726. CrossRef
A Fatal Case of Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM) Complicated with Diabetes Insipidus (DI): A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Muhammad Zain Mushtaq, Saad Bin Zafar Mahmood, Adil Aziz
Case Reports in Infectious Diseases.2020; 2020: 1. CrossRef

7,599 View
194 Download
11 Web of Science
Crossref

Original Article

In Vitro Infectivity Assessment by Drug Susceptibility Comparison of Recombinant Leishmania major Expressing Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein or EGFP-Luciferase Fused Genes with Wild-Type Parasite: Somayeh Sadeghi, Negar Seyed, Mohammad-Hossein Etemadzadeh, Saeid Abediankenari, Sima Rafati, Tahereh Taheri; Korean J Parasitol 2015;53(4):385-394.
Published online August 25, 2015; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2015.53.4.385

Abstract
PDF

Leishmaniasis is a worldwide uncontrolled parasitic disease due to the lack of effective drug and vaccine. To speed up effective drug development, we need powerful methods to rapidly assess drug effectiveness against the intracellular form of Leishmania in high throughput assays. Reporter gene technology has proven to be an excellent tool for drug screening in vitro. The effects of reporter proteins on parasite infectivity should be identified both in vitro and in vivo. In this research, we initially compared the infectivity rate of recombinant Leishmania major expressing stably enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) alone or EGFP-luciferase (EGFP-LUC) with the wild-type strain. Next, we evaluated the sensitivity of these parasites to amphotericin B (AmB) as a standard drug in 2 parasitic phases, promastigote and amastigote. This comparison was made by MTT and nitric oxide (NO) assay and by quantifying the specific signals derived from reporter genes like EGFP intensity and luciferase activity. To study the amastigote form, both B10R and THP-1 macrophage cell lines were infected in the stationary phase and were exposed to AmB at different time points. Our results clearly revealed that the 3 parasite lines had similar in vitro infectivity rates with comparable parasite-induced levels of NO following interferon-γ/lipopolysaccharide induction. Based on our results we proposed the more reporter gene, the faster and more sensitive evaluation of the drug efficiency.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Characterization and Evaluation of Microwave-Synthesized Nanostructured Lipid Carriers for Enhanced Amphotericin B Efficacy Against Leishmania donovani: A Novel Therapeutic Paradigm
Sunidhi Lohan, Meenakshi Bhatia
BioNanoScience.2024; 14(3): 2782. CrossRef
Insights into the drug screening approaches in leishmaniasis
Boobalan Gopu, Parampreet Kour, Ramajayan Pandian, Kuljit Singh
International Immunopharmacology.2023; 114: 109591. CrossRef
A short-term method to evaluate anti-leishmania drugs by inhibition of stage differentiation in Leishmania mexicana using flow cytometry
Christian Florian Teh-Poot, Victor Manuel Dzul-Huchim, Jonathan M. Mercado, Liliana Estefanía Villanueva-Lizama, Maria Elena Bottazzi, Kathryn M. Jones, Francis T.F. Tsai, Julio Vladimir Cruz-Chan
Experimental Parasitology.2023; 249: 108519. CrossRef
Challenges and Tools for In Vitro Leishmania Exploratory Screening in the Drug Development Process: An Updated Review
Anita Cohen, Nadine Azas
Pathogens.2021; 10(12): 1608. CrossRef
A Survey on Inhibitory Effect of Whole-Body Extraction and Secretions of Lucilia sericata's Larvae on Leishmania major In vitro
Maryam Tahmasebi, Simindokht Soleimanifard, Alireza Sanei, Azadeh Karimy, Seyed Mohammad Abtahi
Advanced Biomedical Research.2020;[Epub] CrossRef
Potential of the natural products against leishmaniasis in Old World - a review of in-vitro studies
Sofia Cortes, Carolina Bruno de Sousa, Thiago Morais, João Lago, Lenea Campino
Pathogens and Global Health.2020; 114(4): 170. CrossRef
Sambucus ebulus extract stimulates cellular responses in cutaneous leishmaniasis
Maryam Heidari‐Kharaji, Vahid Fallah‐Omrani, Alireza Badirzadeh, Behnam Mohammadi‐Ghalehbin, Mohammad Ali Nilforoushzadeh, Leila Masoori, Hossein Montakhab‐Yeganeh, Mehrak Zare
Parasite Immunology.2019;[Epub] CrossRef
In-depth comparison of cell-based methodological approaches to determine drug susceptibility of visceral Leishmania isolates
Sarah Hendrickx, Lieselotte Van Bockstal, Guy Caljon, Louis Maes, Kiyoshi Kita
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.2019; 13(12): e0007885. CrossRef
Assessment of Leishmania cell lines expressing high levels of beta-galactosidase as alternative tools for the evaluation of anti-leishmanial drug activity
Aline C. da Silva Santos, Danielle M.N. Moura, Thiago A.R. dos Santos, Osvaldo P. de Melo Neto, Valéria R.A. Pereira
Journal of Microbiological Methods.2019; 166: 105732. CrossRef
Development of NanoLuc-PEST expressing Leishmania mexicana as a new drug discovery tool for axenic- and intramacrophage-based assays
Sarah L. Berry, Hamza Hameed, Anna Thomason, Marissa L. Maciej-Hulme, Somaia Saif Abou-Akkada, Paul Horrocks, Helen P. Price, Timothy G. Geary
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.2018; 12(7): e0006639. CrossRef
Arginase activity in pathogenic and non-pathogenic species of Leishmania parasites
Alireza Badirzadeh, Tahereh Taheri, Yasaman Taslimi, Zahra Abdossamadi, Maryam Heidari-Kharaji, Elham Gholami, Baharehsadat Sedaghat, Maryam Niyyati, Sima Rafati, Armando Jardim
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.2017; 11(7): e0005774. CrossRef
Human Neutrophil Peptide 1 as immunotherapeutic agent against Leishmania infected BALB/c mice
Zahra Abdossamadi, Negar Seyed, Farnaz Zahedifard, Tahereh Taheri, Yasaman Taslimi, Hossein Montakhab-Yeganeh, Alireza Badirzadeh, Mohammad Vasei, Safoora Gharibzadeh, Sima Rafati, Michael P. Pollastri
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.2017; 11(12): e0006123. CrossRef
EGFP reporter protein: its immunogenicity in Leishmania-infected BALB/c mice
Samira Seif, Fereshteh Kazemi, Elham Gholami, Negar Seyed, Yasaman Taslimi, Sima Habibzadeh, Bahareh Azarian, Shahram Jamshidi, Mehrdad Hashemi, Sima Rafati, Tahereh Taheri
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.2016; 100(9): 3923. CrossRef

11,386 View
113 Download
15 Web of Science
Crossref

Case Report

A Fatal Case of Naegleria fowleri Meningoencephalitis in Taiwan: Mei-Yu Su, Ming-Shih Lee, Ling-Yuh Shyu, Wei-Chen Lin, Pei-Ching Hsiao, Chi-Ping Wang, Dar-Der Ji, Ke-Min Chen, Shih-Chan Lai; Korean J Parasitol 2013;51(2):203-206.
Published online April 25, 2013; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3347/kjp.2013.51.2.203

Abstract
PDF

After bathing at a hot spring resort, a 75-year-old man presented to the emergency department because of seizure-like attack with loss of conscious. This is the first case of primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) caused by Naegleria fowleri in Taiwan. PAM was diagnosed based on detection of actively motile trophozoites in cerebrospinal fluid using a wet-mount smear and the Liu's stain. The amoebae were further confirmed by PCR and gene sequencing. In spite of administering amphotericin B treatment, the patient died 25 days later.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Enlightening the promising role of nanoparticle-based treatments against Naegleria fowleri-induced primary amoebic meningoencephalitis: A brain-eating disease
Sunita Jhulki, Biplab Bhowmik, Aparajita Pal
Microbial Pathogenesis.2025; 199: 107234. CrossRef
Naegleria fowleri Infections: Bridging Clinical Observations and Epidemiological Insights
Carmen Rîpă, Roxana Gabriela Cobzaru, Miruna Raluca Rîpă, Alexandra Maștaleru, Andra Oancea, Carmen Marinela Cumpăt, Maria Magdalena Leon
Journal of Clinical Medicine.2025; 14(2): 526. CrossRef
Pathogenic free-living amoebic encephalitis from 48 cases in China: A systematic review
Xiang-Ting Chen, Qian Zhang, Si-Yuan Wen, Fei-Fei Chen, Chang-Qing Zhou
Frontiers in Neurology.2023;[Epub] CrossRef
Systematic Review of Brain-Eating Amoeba: A Decade Update
Mohd ‘Ammar Ihsan Ahmad Zamzuri, Farah Nabila Abd Majid, Massitah Mihat, Siti Salwa Ibrahim, Muhammad Ismail, Suriyati Abd Aziz, Zuraida Mohamed, Lokman Rejali, Hazlina Yahaya, Zulhizzam Abdullah, Mohd Rohaizat Hassan, Rahmat Dapari, Abd Majid Mohd Isa
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.2023; 20(4): 3021. CrossRef
Understanding the true burden of “Naegleria fowleri” (Vahlkampfiidae) in patients from Northern states of India: Source tracking and significance
Ashutosh Panda, Bijay Ranjan Mirdha, Neha Rastogi, Samander Kasuhik
European Journal of Protistology.2020; 76: 125726. CrossRef
Naegleria fowleri: diagnosis, treatment options and pathogenesis
Mohammad Ridwane Mungroo, Naveed Ahmed Khan, Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui
Expert Opinion on Orphan Drugs.2019; 7(2): 67. CrossRef
Nested PCR assay for the rapid detection of Naegleria fowleri from swimming pools in Egypt
W.M. Hikal, M.A. Dkhil
Acta Ecologica Sinica.2018; 38(2): 102. CrossRef
The therapeutic strategies against Naegleria fowleri
Natália Karla Bellini, Thomás Michelena Santos, Marco Túlio Alves da Silva, Otavio Henrique Thiemann
Experimental Parasitology.2018; 187: 1. CrossRef
Effects of Culture Media On Naegleria fowleri Growth At Different Temperatures
Silvere D. Zaongo, Men-Fang Shaio, Dar-Der Ji
Journal of Parasitology.2018; 104(5): 451. CrossRef
Exotic Tourist Destinations and Transmission of Infections by Swimming Pools and Hot Springs—A Literature Review
Athena Mavridou, Olga Pappa, Olga Papatzitze, Chrysa Dioli, Anastasia Maria Kefala, Panagiotis Drossos, Apostolos Beloukas
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.2018; 15(12): 2730. CrossRef
Surviving Naegleria fowleri infections: A successful case report and novel therapeutic approach
Travis W. Heggie, Thomas Küpper
Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.2017; 16: 49. CrossRef
Review: Occurrence of the pathogenic amoeba Naegleria fowleri in groundwater
Kelly R. Bright, Charles P. Gerba
Hydrogeology Journal.2017; 25(4): 953. CrossRef
Biology and pathogenesis of Naegleria fowleri
Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui, Ibne Karim M. Ali, Jennifer R. Cope, Naveed Ahmed Khan
Acta Tropica.2016; 164: 375. CrossRef
Effective PCR-based detection of Naegleria fowleri from cultured sample and PAM-developed mouse
Heekyoung Kang, Gi-Sang Seong, Hae-Jin Sohn, Jong-Hyun Kim, Sang-Eun Lee, Mi Yeoun Park, Won-Ja Lee, Ho-Joon Shin
European Journal of Protistology.2015; 51(5): 401. CrossRef