Toxoplasma gondii is a unique intracellular parasite, which infect a large proportion of the world population, but uncommonly causes clinically significant disease. The present study was performed to estimate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in 400 apparently healthy blood donor males, their ages were between 18 and 57 years using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, and to examine the effects of infection on total testosterone, free testosterone and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) levels in their sera. Seroprevalence showed 10 (2.5 %) and 121 (30 %) of them had IgM and IgG antibodies respectively. Both acute and chronic toxoplasmosis in males recorded higher significant (P \ 0.05) mean concentration for total and free testosterone hormone, they were 12.188 ± 0.73, 7.837 ± 0.52 ng/ ml and 44.121 ± 1.76, 27.984 ± 0.94 pg/ml respectively. The mean concentration of FSH revealed non-significant (P \ 0.05) differences in both disease activities, they were 6.41 ± 0.47 and 6.515 ± 0.51 IU/ml respectively.

Toxoplasma gondii is an opportunistic parasite in immune-compromised persons. The prevalence of toxoplasmosis in psoriasis patients is investigated. In addition, the treatment effect on psoriasis patients infected with toxoplasmosis through evaluating Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α) cytokine levels is studied. Blood samples were collected from 130 individuals who involved 60 control samples and 70 samples with psoriasis. They attended Medical City Hospital in Baghdad province from October 2017 -February 2018. Then, the anti-T. gondii antibodies (IgM and IgG) and TNF-α in the sera were determined via the enzyme linked immune-sorbent assay. The highest rate of anti-Toxoplasma IgG was in psoriasis patients before treatment, it was 45 (64.29%) compared with the control which was 33 (55.00%), while the highest seropositive rate of T. gondii IgM in the control group was 14 (23.33%) compared with patients with psoriasis 10 (14.29%). The highest rate of toxoplasmosis was in the age group (21-30) years in psoriasis patients which was 14 (31.82%). In addition, the TNF-α levels in psoriatic patients before treatment were 180.2±2.2 µg/ml, and after treatment were 223.3±41.1 µg/ml compared with the healthy control group 90.5±1.9 µg/ml. These findings suggest that incidental rate of toxoplasmosis is higher in psoriasis patients. Thus, the incidental rate of toxoplasmosis could be considered as an indication to the high risk of psoriasis.

Leishmania parasite preferentially infect host phagocytic cells, primarily dendritic cells and macrophages. One of the main problems with Leishmania infections is the capability of these parasites to evade and subvert immune responses of the host. Leishmaniasis is treated with a small arsenal of drugs; all of them have disadvantages in terms of efficacy, high price, toxicity or treatment regimen. In this study, the effect of Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) was evaluated against intracellular amastigotes Leishmania donovani in vitro conditions. The effect of different concentrations from ZnO NPs (0.18, 0.37, 0.75 and 1.5 μg / ml) was used to study on the viability of amastigotes and macrophages "following infection" using the colorimetric (MTT) assay. The results have been shown that the ZnO NPs have a cytotoxic effect on the proliferation of the amastigotes forms and have no effect. The IC50 of ZnO NPs on amastigotes was (0.610 µg/ ml).This study concluded that the used concentrations of ZnO NPs have the ability to stimulate macrophages activity and promote the suppressive effects on L. donovani intracellular amastigotes in vitro following infection. These results may contribute to the production of an effective, non-toxic and cheap drug against Leishmania parasites Keywords: Zinc oxide nanoparticles, Visceral leishmaniasis, Macrophages. ‫متنا‬ ‫الزنك‬ ‫أوكسید‬ ‫لدقائق‬ ‫السمي‬ ‫التأثیر‬ ISSN: 0067-2904 Salih and ZghairIraqi Journal of Science, 2017, Vol. 58, No.4C, pp: 2285-2290 IntroductionLeishmaniasis is caused by an obligate intramacrophage protozoan of the genus Leishmania. In tropical regions protozoan parasitic diseases pose a main public health problem. After malaria, leishmaniasis stands second in having a high morbidity and mortality burden leading to economic loss. It widely manifests as cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), mucocutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis (VL), or kala-azar. Leishmania donovani is the causative agent of VL in the Indian subcontinent and Africa; L. infantum causes VL in the Mediterranean basin [1]. VL is the most dangerous leishmaniasis form, it is characterized by fever, cachexia, hyper-gamaglobulinemia and hepatosplenomegaly, when untreated can be fatal [2]. The innate immune responses against Leishmania include phagocytes, Natural killer (NK) cells and cytokines [3]. Phagocytosis and anti-leishmanial activity of macrophages are the major factors in the elimination of Leishmania parasites .One route to estimate the infectivity of Leishmania and the anti-parasite immune response is to assess the germicidal activity of macrophages via the generation of reactive oxygen and nitrogen intermediates, particularly nitric oxide (NO) [4,5]. The treatment for leishmaniasis is primarily dependent upon antimonial compounds as first-line drugs (e.g., meglumine antimoniate and sodium stibogluconate). Amphotericin B is a second-line drug exhibiting teratogenic effects and nephrotoxicity. Miltefosine is the only oral treatment available to cure leishmaniasis. Treatment failure rates...

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