Chapters authored
Neuroimmunoendocrine Interactions in Tumorigenesis and Breast Cancer By Rocío Alejandra Ruiz-Manzano, Tania de Lourdes Ochoa-Mercado, Mariana Segovia-Mendoza, Karen Elizabeth Nava-Castro, Margarita Isabel Palacios-Arreola and Jorge Morales-Montor
Organism homeostasis is regulated through the tri-directional relationships between immune, endocrine, and nervous systems. These relationships are established by a complex network of chemokines, cytokines, hormones (peptide and non-peptide), neurotransmitters, and neurohormones that act onto its target cells, through common receptors. Despite initial attribution of the exclusive action of each molecule group (neurotransmitters, hormones, and cytokines), to the function of one specific system (nervous, endocrine, and immune, respectively), ligand and receptor pleiotropy and redundancy showed the multidirectional communication between systems. Cancer and metabolic and autoimmune diseases get established when homeostasis is disrupted. These interactions act in different disease levels, in cancer, since initial immunosurveillance phase, until immunosubversion and metastasis, in all cases is crucial for tumor development, cancer outcome, and patient prognosis.
Part of the book: Tumor Progression and Metastasis
The Long Road to the Immunodiagnosis of Neurocysticercosis: Controversies and Confusions By Marcela Esquivel-Velázquez, Carlos Larralde, Pedro Ostoa-Saloma, Víctor Hugo Del Río Araiza and Jorge Morales-Montor
To date, even widely studied, there is not a standard diagnostic method to detect neurocysticercotic patients. The later due to the complex nature of cysticercosis disease and the simplicity of common immunological assumptions involved in explaining the low scores and reproducibility of immunotests in the diagnosis of neurocysticercosis. To begin with, the few studies dealing with the immune response during neurocysticercosis are not conclusive, which of course it is crucial to develop an immunodiagnostic test. Their full recognition should clear confusion and reduce controversy as well as provide avenues of research and technological design. In here, logical arguments add that even under common immunological assumptions, serology of neurocysticercosis will always include false negative and positive results. Thus, serology is no strong support for medical diagnosis of neurocysticercosis (NC). In contrast, immunotests performed in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of neurological patients should have fewer false positive and fewer false negatives than in serum. To conclude, it is argued that high scores in serology for NC will not yield to usual approaches and that success needs of a concerted worldwide effort. A more punctilious strategy based on the design of panels of confirmed positive and negative sera needs to be construed, shared and tested by all interested groups to obtain comparable results. The identification of a set of specific and representative antigens of Taenia solium (T. solium) and a thorough compilation of the many forms of antibody response of humans to the many forms of T. solium disease are also to be considered as one of the most importants factors to the disease.
Part of the book: Current State of the Art in Cysticercosis and Neurocysticercosis
New Uses for Old Drugs and Their Application in Helminthology By Victor Hugo Del Río-Araiza, Romel Hernandéz-Bello and Jorge Morales-Montor
Parasitic infection research, performed on both humans and domestic animals, has been mostly focused on vaccines, diagnostic methods, epidemiology, and the evolutionary origins of parasites, thanks to the emergence of genomics and proteomics. However, the basic biology of the host-parasite interactions of several medical or veterinary important parasites has not been fully studied. Limited information has been obtained on the intricate neuroimmunoendocrine effects of host-parasite interplay in particular; therefore, the consequences of these interactions, and their possible therapeutic applications, are in need of thorough research. The current manuscript attempts to review the available literature regarding the host-parasite neuroimmunoendocrine network and to discuss how this basic research can be used to design new treatments using hormones, antihormones, and hormone analogs as a novel therapy against parasitic diseases. In addition, these studies may also contribute in identifying alternative treatments for parasitic diseases in the future. The complex immune-endocrine network may also help in explaining the frequently conflicting results observed in infections with regards to host sex and age and offer helpful insight into other research avenues besides parasite treatment and control strategies. Finally, several natural products isolated from plants, used in traditional medicine, offer an alternative approach for natural products in the preparation of inexpensive and effective antiparasitic drugs.
Part of the book: Parasitic Helminths and Zoonoses
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