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An epidemic of Chikungunya fever of unprecedented magnitude occurred in many parts of India in early 2006 after an interval of 33 years, and there has been a resurgence in some parts of South India since June 2007. The article highlights clinical manifestations of infection and various molecular tests that were used for diagnoses of Chikungunya virus infection. Of particular interest is the real-time loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT LAMP) assay, which is rapid and cost-effective and can be adopted at ill-equipped laboratories. Clinical symptoms were characterized by a triad of fever, rash, and severe rheumatic manifestations. RT LAMP identified 20 additional Chikungunya virus-positive cases, compared with reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Chikungunya virus was isolated from 20 randomly selected samples. Genotyping of the virus isolates revealed that the East Central South African genotype of Chikungunya virus was the etiologic agent of this epidemic. Molecular diagnosis is an important tool to identify such new vectorborne viral illnesses.

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T-2 toxin is one of the most potent trichothecenes, and on exposure causes severe human and animal diseases. We investigated the dose- and time-dependent effect of T-2 toxin on certain biochemical variables, oxidative damage in terms of antioxidant enzyme activity, and gene expression profile in mice. Mice treated intraperitoneally with either 1 LD50 or 2 LD50 dose (5.61 and 11.22 mg/kg body weight, respectively) of T-2 toxin showed significant alterations in hepatic alanine amino transferase, aspartate amino transferase, and lactate dehydrogenase. Significant changes in hepatic lipid peroxidation, depletion of glutathione (GSH), and expression of heat shock protein-70 indicated oxidative damage. We also evaluated the activity of antioxidant enzymes and compared the gene expression profile by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Except for glutathione reductase (GR), there was a significant increase in activity of glutathione-S-transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase at 1 LD50 dose. At 2 LD50 dose, SOD showed decrease in activity, whereas GST, GPx, and catalase showed significant increase. In contrast, gene expression profile showed downregulation in GR, GPx, GST, and catalase at 1 LD50 dose. At 2 LD50 dose except GSH synthetase, all other genes were downregulated. The results clearly show oxidative stress as one of the mechanisms of T-2 toxin-mediated toxicity.

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T-2 toxin is the most toxic trichothecene and a frequent contaminant in many agriculture products. Dietary ingestion represents the most common route of T-2 toxin exposure in humans. T-2 toxin exposure leads to many pathological conditions like nervous disorders, cardiovascular alterations, immune depression and dermal inflammation. However, the neuronal toxicity of T-2 toxin in vitro remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism of T-2 toxin-induced apoptosis in human neuroblastoma cells (IMR-32). T-2 toxin was cytotoxic at a low concentration of 10 ng/ml. The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of T-2 toxin was found to be 40 ng/ml as assessed by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, crystal violet dye exclusion test and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage. T-2 toxin increased intracellular reactive oxygen species generation as early as 15 min and peaked at 60 min as analyzed by flow cytometry. Annexin V + propidium iodide staining showed time-dependent increase in percent apoptotic cells. DNA gel electrophoresis showed oligonucleosomal DNA fragmentation typical of apoptotic cells. Additionally, casapse-3 activation and PARP cleavage indicated involvement of mitochondrial mediated caspase-dependent pathway of apoptosis. Cell cycle analysis revealed time-dependent increase in sub-G1 population of cells and significant up-regulation of CDK2, CDK6, cyclin A and p21 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels. Exposure to T-2 toxin induced the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38-mitogen-activated protein kinase and c-jun N-terminal kinases (JNK). Analysis of human phospho-mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) antibody array revealed time-dependent increase in phosphorylation. Upstream of ERK pathway Grb2, Ras and Raf and downstream transcription factors c-fos and c-jun were significantly up-regulated. Z-VAD-FMK and MAPK inhibitors (PD 98059, SB 203580 and ZM 336372) exposure prior to T-2 toxin treatment significantly decreased percent of apoptotic cells compared to only T-2 toxin-exposed cells. Results of the present study show that T-2 toxin at nanogram concentrations can induce apoptosis in human neuronal cells through multiple signal transduction pathways. The study provides possible leads for developing therapeutic approaches to prevent T-2 toxin-induced neurotoxicity.