Current Molecular Medicine - Volume 9, Issue 2, 2009

Central Nervous System (CNS) tuberculosis is a serious, often fatal form of tuberculosis, predominantly affecting young children. HIV co-infection and drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are making the diagnosis and treatment of CNS tuberculosis more complicated. Current concepts about the pathogenesis of CNS tuberculosis are based on necropsy studies done in 1933, which suggest that tuberculous meni Read More

Staphylococcus aureus can cause a wide variety of infections, ranging from minor skin infections to post-operative wound infections. Its adaptive power to antibiotics has resulted in the emergence of methicillinresistant S. aureus (MRSA) in the beginning of the 1960s. Resistance to methicillin and all other ß-lactam antibiotics is caused by the mecA gene, which is situated on a mobile genomic island, the Staphylococcal Cassett Read More

Malaria is one of today's most serious diseases with an enormous socioeconomic impact. While anti- malarial drugs have existed for some time and vaccines development may be underway, the most successful malaria eradication programs have thus far relied on attacking the mosquito vector that spreads the disease causing agent Plasmodium. Here we will review past, current and future perspectives of malaria vector control Read More

Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus can infect humans and is currently the most deadly influenza virus that has crossed the species barrier. As of December 2007, the spread of H5N1 virus from human to human has been rare. Nobody can predict if H5N1 may cause a pandemic. However, the number of human cases is continuously increasing and changes in virulence and epidemiology have been detected. There Read More

Dengue is a very rapidly growing public health problem being currently faced by ∼40% of the global population living in more than a hundred tropical and sub-tropical countries. It is a viral disease, caused by four types of dengue viruses, transmitted by mosquitoes, to an estimated 50 million people each year. Vector control methods to contain transmission have not been successful and there is currently no useful diag Read More

The filoviruses, Ebola (EBOV) and Marburg (MARV), are among the deadliest of human pathogens, causing acute diseases typified by rapidly fatal hemorrhagic fevers. Upon filoviral infection, innate immune cells become paralyzed and lose the capacity to properly co-stimulate and activate filovirus-specific, T-cell responses. Deleterious inflammation and upregulation of co-inhibitory molecules expressed by monocytic lineage Read More

Hemichannels are transmembrane channels that represent the functional subunits of gap junctions. Each hemichannel is composed of a connexin or pannexin hexamer and, after being transported to the membrane, remains unpaired until it is incorporated in a gap junction. Several studies have already provided evidence that gap junction-mediated intercellular diffusion of ions and small molecules during ischemia represent Read More

The interaction between the brain and immune system has been intensely studied in patients with several central nervous system (CNS) disorders including brain trauma and brain tumours. Pioneering studies described cellular immune changes after human stroke more than three decades ago but the potential existence of a CNS- mediated immunodepression syndrome has obtained renewed attention only recently. The CNS an Read More

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a prevalent disease that has emerged as a new cerebrovascular disease (CVD) risk factor, which is independent of its association to hypertension, age and other known conditions that increase CVD. The mechanisms involved in this relation are most likely induced by the periodic hypoxia/ reoxygenation that characteristically occurs in OSA, which results in oxidative stress, endothelial dysfun Read More

A predisposing weakness of the vessel wall has been assumed in patients with spontaneous cervical artery dissections (sCAD). Skin biopsies from many patients with sCAD show mild connective tissue alterations. However, their assessment depends on an invasive and highly specialized technique. Clinical signs of connective tissue disease are absent in the majority of CAD patients. In this review we document that only ve Read More

Strong epidemiological evidence indicates that migraine, especially migraine with aura, is associated with increased risk of ischemic stroke. However, the precise mechanisms of such a relation are currently not fully elucidated and are still a matter of speculation. Migraine may directly cause an ischemic event (i.e, migrainous infarct), by inducing cerebral microcirculatory vasoconstriction (cortical spreading depression-r Read More

Hyperbaric (HBO) or normobaric oxygen (NBO) therapy applied in acute ischemic stroke aims to increase oxygen supply to the ischemic tissue and to reduce the extent of irreversible tissue damage. Over the past decade, multiple studies have clarified the potential and limitations of oxygen therapy in preclinical stroke models. Considering that the reduction of the infarct size amounts to 30-40%, the cerebroprotection induce Read More