Dr. Kousuke Umeda (postdoctoral fellow) and Mr. Mingming Liu (graduate student) of the National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases received “the 9th encouragement award of the Japanese Society of Veterinary Parasitologists” in the 161st meeting of the Japanese Society of Veterinary Science at Tsukuba International Congress Center on Sep. 11–13, 2018. This award is for outstanding young researchers who contributed to the progress of veterinary parasitology and will further develop in the future.
The title of Umeda’s study was “Functional analysis of Toll-like receptor 2 and CC chemokine receptor 5 during Toxoplasma gondii infection —Based on transcriptome of primary mouse brain cells—”. Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate pathogen that a third of the world’s population are infected with, and the infection is a risk factor for encephalitis and neural disorder. Dr. Umeda performed a comparative transcriptomic analysis on different types of brain cells infected with T. gondii and comprehensively revealed the relationship between gene expression in the brain cells and important immune receptors, Toll-like receptor 2 and CC chemokine receptor 5. This work provides a further understanding of the mechanism of disorders caused by T. gondii infection and leads to the development of effective treatment and prevention of the disease.
The title of Liu’s study was “Establishment of a stable transfection system for genetic manipulation of Babesia gibsoni”. The genus Babesia consists of about 100 species of tick-borne intraerythrocytic protozoan parasites. However, genetic modification methods have been established for only three species, which infects cattle. Mr. Liu successfully established a genetic modification method for Babesia gibsoni, which infects dogs in Asia, including Japan, and has seriously damaged the pet industry. This method enables us to introduce foreign genes to the parasite and to easily knock out target genes in the parasite. This work is expected to help us identify virulence genes in the parasite and will be applied for the development of a novel recombinant vaccine using parasites attenuated by knock-out of the virulence genes in the future.
