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Biocrystallization
Biocrystallization is the formation of crystals from organic macromolecules by living organisms. This may be a stress response, a normal part of metabolism such as processes that dispose of waste compounds, or a pathology. Template mediated crystallization is qualitatively different from ''in vitro'' crystallization. Inhibitors of biocrystallization are of interest in drug design efforts against lithiasis and against pathogens that feed on blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood is com ..., since many of these organisms use this process to safely dispose of heme. DNA Under severe stress conditions the bacteria ''Escherichia coli'' protects its DNA from damage by sequestering it within a crystalline structure. This process is mediated by the stress response protein Dps and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hemozoin
Haemozoin is a disposal product formed from the digestion of blood by some blood-feeding parasites. These hematophagy, hematophagous organisms such as malaria parasites (''Plasmodium spp.''), ''Rhodnius'' and ''Schistosoma'' digest haemoglobin and release high quantities of free heme, which is the non-protein component of haemoglobin. Heme is a prosthetic group consisting of an iron atom contained in the center of a heterocyclic porphyrin ring. Free heme is toxic to cells, so the parasites convert it into an insoluble crystalline form called hemozoin. In malaria parasites, hemozoin is often called ''malaria pigment''. Since the formation of hemozoin is essential to the survival of these parasites, it is an attractive target for drug development, developing drugs and is much-studied in ''Plasmodium'' as a way to find drugs to treat malaria (malaria's Achilles' heel). Several currently used antimalarial drugs, such as chloroquine and mefloquine, are thought to kill malaria parasites ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biomineralization
Biomineralization, also written biomineralisation, is the process by which living organisms produce minerals, often resulting in hardened or stiffened '' mineralized tissues''. It is an extremely widespread phenomenon: all six taxonomic kingdoms contain members that can form minerals, and over 60 different minerals have been identified in organisms. Examples include silicates in algae and diatoms, carbonates in invertebrates, and calcium phosphates and carbonates in vertebrates. These minerals often form structural features such as sea shells and the bone in mammals and birds. Organisms have been producing mineralized skeletons for the past 550 million years. Calcium carbonates and calcium phosphates are usually crystalline, but silica organisms (such as sponges and diatoms) are always non-crystalline minerals. Other examples include copper, iron, and gold deposits involving bacteria. Biologically formed minerals often have special uses such as magnetic sensors in magnetota ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chloroquine 3D
Chloroquine is an antiparasitic medication that treats malaria. It works by increasing the levels of heme in the blood, a substance toxic to the malarial parasite. This kills the parasite and stops the infection from spreading. Certain types of malaria, resistant strains, and complicated cases typically require different or additional medication. Chloroquine is also occasionally used for amebiasis that is occurring outside the intestines, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus erythematosus. While it has not been formally studied in pregnancy, it appears safe. It is taken by mouth. It was studied to treat COVID-19 early in the pandemic, but these studies were largely halted in the northern summer of 2020, and the NIH does not recommend its use for this purpose. Common side effects include muscle problems, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and skin rash. Serious side effects include problems with vision, muscle damage, seizures, and low blood cell levels. Chloroquine is a member of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamma Radiation
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from high energy interactions like the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei or astronomical events like solar flares. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically shorter than those of X-rays. With frequencies above 30 exahertz () and wavelengths less than 10 picometers (), gamma ray photons have the highest photon energy of any form of electromagnetic radiation. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist, discovered gamma radiation in 1900 while studying radiation emitted by radium. In 1903, Ernest Rutherford named this radiation ''gamma rays'' based on their relatively strong penetration of matter; in 1900, he had already named two less penetrating types of decay radiation (discovered by Henri Becquerel) alpha rays and beta rays in ascending order of penetrating power. Gamma rays from radioactive decay are in the energy range ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasite
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson characterised parasites' way of feeding as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Phenotypic trait, Trait inheritance and Molecular genetics, molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the Cell (bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chloroquine
Chloroquine is an antiparasitic medication that treats malaria. It works by increasing the levels of heme in the blood, a substance toxic to the malarial parasite. This kills the parasite and stops the infection from spreading. Certain types of malaria, resistant strains, and complicated cases typically require different or additional medication. Chloroquine is also occasionally used for amebiasis that is occurring outside the intestines, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus erythematosus. While it has not been formally studied in pregnancy, it appears safe. It is taken by mouth. It was studied to treat COVID-19 early in the COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic, but these studies were largely halted in the northern summer of 2020, and the National Institutes of Health, NIH does not recommend its use for this purpose. Common side effects include muscle problems, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and skin rash. Serious side effects include problems with vision, muscle damage, seizures, and aplas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antimalarial Drug
Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young children and pregnant women. As of 2018, modern treatments, including for severe malaria, continued to depend on therapies deriving historically from quinine and artesunate, both parenteral (injectable) drugs, expanding from there into the many classes of available modern drugs. Incidence and distribution of the disease ("malaria burden") is expected to remain high, globally, for many years to come; moreover, known antimalarial drugs have repeatedly been observed to elicit resistance in the malaria parasite—including for combination therapies featuring artemisinin, a drug of last resort, where resistance has now been observed in Southeast Asia. As such, the needs for new antimalarial agents and new strategies of treatment (e.g., new com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quinoline
Quinoline is a heterocyclic aromatic organic compound with the chemical formula C9H7N. It is a colorless hygroscopic liquid with a strong odor. Aged samples, especially if exposed to light, become yellow and later brown. Quinoline is only slightly soluble in cold water but dissolves readily in hot water and most organic solvents. Quinoline itself has few applications, but many of its derivatives are useful in diverse applications. A prominent example is quinine, an alkaloid found in plants. Over 200 biologically active quinoline and quinazoline alkaloids are identified. 4-Hydroxy-2-alkylquinolines (HAQs) are involved in antibiotic resistance. Occurrence and isolation Quinoline was first extracted from coal tar in 1834 by German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge; he called quinoline ''leukol'' ("white oil" in Greek). Coal tar remains the principal source of commercial quinoline. In 1842, French chemist Charles Gerhardt obtained a compound by dry distilling quinine, st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schistosoma
''Schistosoma'' is a genus of trematodes, commonly known as blood flukes. They are Parasitism, parasitic flatworms responsible for a highly significant group of infections in humans termed ''schistosomiasis'', which is considered by the World Health Organization to be the second-most socioeconomically devastating parasitic disease (after malaria), infecting millions worldwide. Adult flatworms parasitize blood capillaries of either the mesenteries or plexus of the bladder, depending on the infecting species. They are unique among trematodes and any other flatworms in that they are Dioecy, dioecious with distinct sexual dimorphism between male and female. Thousands of eggs are released and reach either the bladder or the intestine (according to the infecting species), and these are then excreted in urine or feces to fresh water. Larvae must then pass through an intermediate snail Host (biology), host before the next larval stage of the parasite emerges that can infect a new mammal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhodnius
''Rhodnius'' is a genus of assassin bugs in the subfamily Triatominae (the kissing bugs), and is an important vector in the spread of Chagas disease. The ''Rhodnius'' species were important models for Sir Vincent Wigglesworth's studies of insect physiology, specifically growth and development. Species *''Rhodnius amazonicus'' Almeida, Santos & Sposina, 1973 *''Rhodnius brethesi'' Matta, 1919 (Tc) *''Rhodnius colombiensis'' Moreno Mejía, Galvão & Jurberg, 1999 *''Rhodnius dalessandroi'' Carcavallo & Barreto, 1976 *''Rhodnius domesticus'' Neiva & Pinto, 1923 (Tc) *''Rhodnius ecuadoriensis'' Lent & León, 1958 (Tc) *''Rhodnius milesi'' Carcavallo, Rocha, Galvão, Jurberg, 2001 *'' Rhodnius nasutus'' Stål, 1859 (Tc) *'' Rhodnius neglectus'' Lent, 1954 (Tc) *''Rhodnius neivai'' Lent, 1953 *'' Rhodnius pallescens'' Barber, 1932 (Tc) (principal vector in Panama). *''Rhodnius paraensis'' Sherlock, Guitton & Miles, 1977 (Tc) *''Rhodnius pictipes'' Stål, 1872 (Tc) *'' Rhodnius prolixus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasmodium
''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a Hematophagy, blood-feeding insect host (biology), host which then injects parasites into a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Parasites grow within a vertebrate body tissue (often the liver) before entering the bloodstream to infect red blood cells. The ensuing destruction of host red blood cells can result in malaria. During this infection, some parasites are picked up by a blood-feeding insect (mosquitoes in majority cases), continuing the life cycle. ''Plasmodium'' is a member of the phylum Apicomplexa, a large group of parasitic eukaryotes. Within Apicomplexa, ''Plasmodium'' is in the order Haemosporida and family Plasmodiidae. Over 200 species of ''Plasmodium'' have been described, many of which have been subdivided into 14 subgenera based on parasite morphology and host range. Evolutionary relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
