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Rickettsia Conorii
''Rickettsia conorii'' is a Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacterium of the genus ''Rickettsia'' that causes human disease called boutonneuse fever, Mediterranean spotted fever, Israeli tick typhus, Astrakhan spotted fever, Kenya tick typhus, Indian tick typhus, or other names that designate the locality of occurrence while having distinct clinical features. It is a member of the spotted fever group and the most geographically dispersed species in the group, recognized in most of the regions bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, Israel, Kenya, and other parts of North, Central, and South Africa, and India. The prevailing vector is the brown dog tick, ''Rhipicephalus sanguineus''. The bacterium was isolated by Emile Brumpt in 1932 and named after A. Conor, who in collaboration with A. Bruch, provided the first description of boutonneuse fever in Tunisia in 1910. The genome of the bacterium has been sequenced and four subspecies have been identified. Genomes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vero Cell
Vero cells are a lineage of cells used in cell cultures. The 'Vero' lineage was isolated from kidney epithelial cells extracted from an African green monkey ('' Chlorocebus'' sp.; formerly called ''Cercopithecus aethiops'', this group of monkeys has been split into several different species). The lineage was developed on 27 March 1962 by Yasumura and Kawakita at the Chiba University in Chiba, Japan. The original cell line was named '' Vero'' after an abbreviation of , which means 'green kidney' in Esperanto, while itself means 'truth' in Esperanto. Characteristics The Vero cell lineage is continuous and aneuploid, meaning that it has an abnormal number of chromosomes. A continuous cell lineage can be replicated through many cycles of division and not become senescent. Vero cells are interferon-deficient; unlike normal mammalian cells, they do not secrete interferon alpha or beta when infected by viruses. However, they still have the Interferon-alpha/beta receptor, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Africa
Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Middle Africa is an analogous term used by the United Nations in its United Nations geoscheme for Africa, geoscheme for Africa and consists of the following countries: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The United Nations Office for Central Africa also includes Burundi and Rwanda in the region, which are considered part of East Africa in the geoscheme. These eleven countries are members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Six of those countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Republic of the Congo) are also members of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mimivirus
''Mimivirus'' is a genus of giant viruses, in the family ''Mimiviridae''. It is believed that Amoeba serve as their natural hosts. It also refers to a group of phylogenetically related large viruses. In colloquial speech, APMV is more commonly referred to as just "mimivirus". Mimivirus, short for "mimicking microbe", is so called to reflect its large size and apparent Gram-staining properties. Mimivirus has a large and complex genome compared with most other viruses. Until 2013, when a larger virus ''Pandoravirus'' was described, it had the largest capsid diameter of all known viruses. History APMV was discovered accidentally in 1992 within the amoeba ''Acanthamoeba, Acanthamoeba polyphaga'', after which it is named, during research into legionellosis by researchers from Marseille and Leeds. The virus was observed in a Gram stain and mistakenly thought to be a Gram-positive bacterium. As a consequence it was named ''Bradfordcoccus'', after Bradford, England, where the amoeba h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pithovirus
''Alphapithovirus'', is a genus of giant virus known from two species, '' Alphapithovirus sibericum'', which infects amoebas, and '' Alphapithovirus massiliense''. It is DNA-based and is a member of the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses clade. It was discovered in 2014, when a viable specimen was found in a 30,000-year-old ice core harvested from permafrost in Siberia, Russia. Description The genus name ''Alphapithovirus'', a reference to large storage containers of ancient Greece known as pithoi, was chosen to describe the new species. A specimen of ''Alphapithovirus'' measures approximately 1.5 μm (1500 nm) in length and 0.5 μm (500 nm) in diameter, making it one of the largest viruses yet found, second to Megaklothovirus. It is 50% larger in size than the '' Pandoraviridae'', the previous largest-known viruses, and is larger than '' Ostreococcus'', the smallest eukaryotic cell, although ''Pandoravirus'' has the largest viral genome, containing 1.9 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pandoravirus
''Pandoravirus'' is a proposed genus of giant virus, first discovered in 2013. It is the third largest in physical size of any known viral genus, behind Pithovirus and Megaklothovirus. Pandoraviruses have double stranded DNA genomes, with the largest genome size (2.5 million base pairs) of any known viral genus. Discovery The discovery of Pandoraviruses by a team of French scientists, led by husband and wife Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, was announced in a report in the journal ''Science'' in July 2013. Other scientists had previously observed the pandoravirus particles, but owing to their enormous size they were not expected to be viruses. Patrick Scheid, a parasitologist from the Central Institute of the Bundeswehr Medical Service in Koblenz, Germany, found one in 2008, in an amoeba living in the contact lens of a woman with keratitis. Its development within the amoebal host was documented extensively. Unlike in other cases with such giant viruses, the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megavirus Chilense
''Megavirus'' is a viral genus, phylogenetically related to '' Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus'' (APMV). In colloquial speech, ''Megavirus chilense'' is more commonly referred to as just "Megavirus". Until the discovery of pandoraviruses in 2013, it had the largest capsid diameter of all known viruses, as well as the largest and most complex genome among all known viruses. Discovery ''Megavirus'' was isolated from a water sample collected in April 2010 off the coast of Chile, near the marine station in Las Cruces, by Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel from the Structural & Genomic Information laboratory (IGS, CNRS and Aix-Marseille University). Megavirus was isolated by co-cultivation with a variety of ''Acanthamoeba'' laboratory strains ('' Acanthamoeba polyphaga'', '' Acanthamoeba castellanii'', '' Acanthamoeba griffini'') following a protocol pioneered by Timothy Rowbotham for isolating intracellular parasitic bacteria. Megavirus infects amoebas. Structure The Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares maritime borders with Italy through the islands of Sicily and Sardinia to the north and Malta to the east. It features the archaeological sites of Carthage dating back to the 9th century BC, as well as the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Known for its ancient architecture, Souks of Tunis, souks, and blue coasts, it covers , and has a population of 12.1 million. It contains the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains and the northern reaches of the Sahara desert; much of its remaining territory is arable land. Its of coastline includes the African conjunction of the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin. Tunisia is home to Africa's northernmost point, Cape Angela. Located on the northeastern coast, Tunis is the capital and List of cities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhipicephalus Sanguineus
''Rhipicephalus sanguineus'', commonly called the brown dog tick, kennel tick, or pantropical dog tick, is a species of tick found worldwide, but more commonly in warmer climates. This species is unusual among ticks in that its entire biological life cycle, lifecycle can be completed indoors. The brown dog tick is easily recognized by its reddish-brown color, elongated body shape, and hexagonal basis capituli (flat surface where mouthparts are attached). Adults are 2.28 to 3.18 mm in length and 1.11 to 1.68 mm in width. They do not have ornamentation on their backs. Development The tick follows the normal developmental stages of egg, larva, nymph, and adult. It is called a three-host tick because it feeds on a different host during each of the larval, nymphal, and adult stages. However, the hosts tend to be of one species. Larvae feed for 5–15 days, drop from the host, and develop into nymphs after 1–2 weeks. The nymphs then attach to either the previous host or a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vector (epidemiology)
In epidemiology, a disease vector is any living agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen such as a parasite or microbe, to another living organism. Agents regarded as vectors are mostly blood-sucking (Hematophagy, hematophagous) arthropods such as mosquitoes. The first major discovery of a disease vector came from Ronald Ross in 1897, who discovered the malaria pathogen when he dissected the stomach tissue of a mosquito. Arthropods Arthropods form a major group of pathogen vectors with mosquitoes, Fly, flies, Sandfly, sand flies, lice, fleas, ticks, and mites transmitting a huge number of pathogens. Many such vectors are haematophagous, which feed on blood at some or all stages of their lives. When the insects and ticks feed on blood, the pathogen enters the blood stream of the host. This can happen in different ways. The ''Anopheles'' mosquito, a vector for malaria, filariasis, and various arthropod-borne-viruses (arboviruses), inserts its delicate mouthpart under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the #Definitions and Usage, physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land. The most restrictive definition considers the region of Southern Africa to consist of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa, while other definitions also include several other countries from the area. Defined by physical geography, Southern Africa is home to several river systems; the Zambezi, Zambezi River is the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, it flows over Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
