Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic zoonotic infection that can\u00a0be transmitted\u00a0through contaminated food, especially undercooked meat. The parasitic infection caused by\u00a0\u2018Toxoplasma gondii\u2019\u00a0can lead to abortion and neonatal mortality in both humans and animals, causing substantial economic losses in the livestock industry due to reproductive failure.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have ranked it as the fourth among food-borne infections of\u00a0major\u00a0concern. The\u00a0infection\u00a0is endemic in India, with a reported seroprevalence of above 20% in humans and animals. Overall, the Indian climate is\u00a0said to be\u00a0conducive to spreading the infection.<\/p>\n
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In this context, the latest research study by\u00a0the laboratory of Abhijit S.\u00a0Deshmukh in the National\u00a0Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) assumes significance. Mr. Deshmukh and his team \u2014\u00a0Poonam Kashyap\u00a0and\u00a0Kalyani R. Aswale \u2014 performed CRISPR-based genetic manipulation on the\u00a0parasite \u2018Toxoplasma gondii\u2019\u00a0and demonstrated\u00a0that depleting the essential splicing protein \u2014 called\u00a0\u2018Cdc5\u2019 \u2014\u00a0disrupts the RNA splicing process, leading to complete arrest of parasite replication.<\/p>\n
Toxoplasma\u2019s\u00a0genome is rich in introns or non-coding DNA sequences, making efficient splicing crucial. The splicing factor protein\u00a0\u2018Cdc5\u2019\u00a0is essential for the\u00a0parasite\u2019s\u00a0survival. Depletion of TgCdc5 leads to erroneous splicing, causing catastrophic effects on the parasites. Experiments conducted on the mouse in the NIAB lab here in Hyderabad had shown that these splicing-deficient parasites lacking the key protein undergo an unproductive stage transition.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that it has been leading to a slower-growing stage that elicits a robust immune response in the mouse host and protects them from future toxoplasma infections. \u201cWhen the protein\u00a0\u2018TgCdc5\u2019\u00a0is depleted upon the parasite infection in mice, these mice generate a protective immunity not only for future infections but also in providing partial protection during pregnancy. These findings suggest that targeting\u00a0\u2018TgCdc5\u2019\u00a0protein could be a viable vaccine strategy for\u00a0toxoplasmosis,\u201c\u00a0said Mr. Deshmukh.<\/p>\n
The disease is presently treated by a combination of Pyrimethamine, Sulfadiazine, and Clindamycin\u00a0drugs.\u00a0The infection causes more severe pathology in small ruminants like sheep and goats through ingestion of contaminated food and water, explained the scientist who has been studying the parasite for the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
Published in the latest issue of the\u00a0journal Nature Communications,\u00a0the research\u00a0work\u00a0provides valuable information to strategize vaccine development for\u00a0Toxoplasmosis, said NIAB Director G. Taru Sharma. The Biotechnology Research and Innovative Council (BRIC)-NIAB is an autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science & Technology.<\/p>\n
Published – May 10, 2025 10:07 am IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic zoonotic infection that can\u00a0be transmitted\u00a0through contaminated food, especially undercooked meat. The parasitic infection caused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[42469,267,42468,42467,70,42466,16,15,1823],"class_list":{"0":"post-89342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-contaminated-food","9":"tag-genetics","10":"tag-national-institute-of-animal-biotechnology","11":"tag-parasitic-zoonotic-infection","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-toxoplasmosis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-world-health-organisation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}