J MICROBIOL METH: 30% of humans are infected with toxoplasma in cats, and through "mental control" to make infected people more risky, CRISPR gene editing has developed a preventive vaccine

It is estimated that more than 30 per cent of the world's humans are infected with toxoplasma, which is a major threat to people with low immunity and pregnant women.
also shown that toxoplasma infections alter host behavior and make them more eager to explore and take risks.
a new study has used CRISPR gene editing technology to build toxoplasma mutants that can act as a vaccine to stop cats from transmitting toxoplasma to humans.
In 2012, South Korea released a bioterror disaster thriller called "Iron Worm Invasion", in which the iron worm, which was originally planted in insects, mutates and is born in the human body, and the iron worm that reaches its reproductive stage can make the host disoriented, throw himself into the water, and then multiply in the water.
Iron worm, slender, horse-like, up to 1 meter, larvae parasites in mantis, locusts and other arthropods, iron mites larvae in arthropods will induce the host to find water, and then allow themselves to successfully enter the water growth and free life.
are widely distributed around the world and can infect humans through water sources, causing iron worm disease (which is rare in humans).
iron worm looks terrible, but good in normal life as long as the attention does not touch sewage, in fact, there is no chance of infection, and human infection with iron worm is rare.
, however, in real life, humans are easily exposed to and infected with another parasite, the toxoplasma.
iron worm induces the host to look for water, as if it were mental control, and toxoplasma has had as much mental control as the host.
Up to 30% of humans infected with toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma gondii) are toxoplasmosis, a intestinal sphereworm found in 1908 by French scholars Nicolle and Manceaux in the liver and spleen monocytes of north African toe-combing rats.
Toxoplasma is widely distributed throughout the world, people and many animals can be infected, with the increase in the number of cat breeders, nearly one-third of the world's population infected, China's positive infection rate of 5% to 20%, some areas as high as 30%.
toxoplasma has a complex life cycle, including both sexual and asexual phases.
the parasite can infect many mammals, it can only complete its life cycle in cats, including house cats.
, toxoplasma can only reproduce asexually in other animals and cannot spread its offspring to the outside world, except for the final host. the potential harm of
toxoplasma infection is an important opportunistic protozoan, and since the 1920s, doctors have come to realize that if a woman is infected with toxoplasma during pregnancy, it can cause illness in infants and, in some cases, blindness, mental retardation, and even severe brain damage or death.
toxoplasma is also a major threat to people with low immunity: at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, scientists had not yet developed effective antiretroviral drugs, and many aids suffer from toxoplasma infection in their late stages.
some studies suggest that toxoplasma infection can potentially affect human behavior and even the culture of the world.
, for example, won eight matches in the knockout stages of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, all of which were won by countries with high rates of toxoplasma infection.
But in healthy children and adults, the symptoms are usually similar to that of the common flu in the early stages of toxoplasma infection, except that after the patient has resisted toxoplasma, the toxoplasma has not been completely eliminated and may lurk in brain cells.
Toxoplasma can lurk in the brain, and early studies of mental control have found that toxoplasma has a strange "mental control" of rodents (rats, rabbits, etc.), and once infected with this brain parasite, the brain and behavior of mice are significantly affected, and they no longer seem to be afraid of cats and become more likely to be eaten, making cats more susceptible to toxoplasma.
can say that the parasite is quite "smart" and can manipulate the behavior of the infected person through "mental control" in order to achieve the purpose of reproduction.
even some studies have linked human infection with toxoplasma to mental health conditions such as impulsiveness/schizophrenia.
, however, there has been intense scientific debate about how toxoplasma affects host behavior and how well the host is "mentally controlled."
January 2020, researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland published a paper in the journal Cell Reports: Neuroinflammation-Associated Aspecific Device of Mouse Predator Fear by Toxoplasma gondii.
The study showed that toxoplasma infection made mice more eager to explore and eliminated fear of predators, not just cats, and found that the severity of behavioral changes was positively related to the number of toxoplasma cysts in the brain, pointing to a wide range of immune-related behavioral changes.
study found that mice infected with toxoplasma were not only not afraid of cats, they had a large heart, dared to go anywhere, and were more adventurous.
this is not a good thing for mice, and bold, curious mice are more likely to go out and be eaten.
toxoplasma spreads every time it is eaten.
, why do mice change so much behavior when they are infected with toxoplasma? The team went on to suggest that the immune response caused by toxoplasma cysts in the brain is the basis for changes in the behavior of infected people.
study found that cysts were distributed roughly evenly in the mouse cortical layer (the outer layer of the brain).
genetic analysis of brain tissue revealed certain inflammatory markers.
that both the number of cysts and the level of inflammation were positively associated with changes in behavior in infected mice.
anti-inflammatory drugs to mice infected with toxoplasma could reverse some of their behavioral changes.
The results suggest that toxoplasma has found a "perfect place" to live in the brain: invading the brain is enough to trigger an immune response that brings the host closer to the predator, but not enough to kill the host immediately.
this could be called "a very clever strategy".
way, toxoplasma is a "crazy genius."
CRISPR gene editing brings solutions to about one-third of the world's human infections and carries toxoplasma, which pose a significant potential risk to immunodeficiency, and toxoplasma infection is a potential threat to pregnant women that cannot be ignored.
, the prevention and control of toxoplasma infections are of great importance to human health and public health.
December 2020, researchers at the University of Zurich in Switzerland published a research paper entitled: A streamlined CRISPR/Cas9 approach for fast genome editing in Toxoplasma gondii and Besnoitia besnoiti.
team created a toxoplasma mutant using CRISPR gene editing techniques, which exhibits poor fertilization, reduced fertility, and prevents its follicles from producing spores.
toxoplasma infected cats with this genetically modified toxoplasma, which can completely prevent the spread of egg sacs and spores after toxoplasma infection.
suggests that the gene-edited toxoplasma can be used as a detoxifying vaccine to stop the spread of toxoplasma.
More importantly, the team said, the study used electro-transfected Cas9 proteins and chemically sgRNAs, transfective components that do not contain protons and are rapidly degraded after editing toxoplasmosis genes to minimize the potential risk of off-target effects.
toxoplasmosis has a complex life cycle and can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, including wild rodents, birds, mammals, and humans.
it is estimated that more than 2 billion people worldwide are infected and carry toxoplasmosis, and humans are infected with toxoplasmosis in three main ways: food-based infections;
CRISPR gene-edited toxoplasma mutant strain developed in this study could effectively prevent cats from spreading toxoplasma, thus severing the last of these transmission pathways.
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