Toxocara Seropositivity, Atopy and Wheezing in Children Living in Poor Neighbourhoods in Urban Latin American

Background Toxocara canis and T. cati are parasites of dogs and cats, respectively, that infect humans and cause human toxocariasis. Infection may cause asthma-like symptoms but is often asymptomatic and is associated with a marked eosinophilia. Previous epidemiological studies indicate that T. canis infection may be associated with the development of atopy and asthma. Objectives To investigate possible associations between Toxocara spp. seropositivity and atopy and childhood wheezing in a population of children living in non-affluent areas of a large Latin American city. Methods The study was conducted in the city of Salvador, Brazil. Data on wheezing symptoms were collected by questionnaire, and atopy was measured by the presence of aeroallergen-specific IgE (sIgE). Skin prick test (SPT), total IgE and peripheral eosinophilia were measured. Toxocara seropositivity was determined by the presence of anti-Toxocara IgG antibodies, and intestinal helminth infections were determined by stool microscopy. Findings Children aged 4 to 11 years were studied, of whom 47% were seropositive for anti-Toxocara IgG; eosinophilia >4% occurred in 74.2% and >10% in 25.4%; 59.6% had elevated levels of total IgE; 36.8% had sIgE≥0.70 kU/L and 30.4% had SPT for at least one aeroallergen; 22.4% had current wheezing symptoms. Anti-Toxocara IgG was positively associated with elevated eosinophils counts, total IgE and the presence of specific IgE to aeroallergens but was inversely associated with skin prick test reactivity. Conclusion The prevalence of Toxocara seropositivity was high in the studied population of children living in conditions of poverty in urban Brazil. Toxocara infection, although associated with total IgE, sIgE and eosinophilia, may prevent the development of skin hypersensitivity to aeroallergens, possibly through increased polyclonal IgE and the induction of a modified Th2 immune reaction

New Insights on the Zika Virus Arrival in the Americas and Spatiotemporal Reconstruction of the Epidemic Dynamics in Brazil.

Zika virus (ZIKV) became a worldwide public health emergency after its introduction in the Americas. Brazil was implicated as central in the ZIKV dispersion, however, a better understanding of the pathways the virus took to arrive in Brazil and the dispersion within the country is needed. An updated genome dataset was assembled with publicly available data. Bayesian phylogeography methods were applied to reconstruct the spatiotemporal history of ZIKV in the Americas and with more detail inside Brazil. Our analyses reconstructed the Brazilian state of Pernambuco as the likely point of introduction of ZIKV in Brazil, possibly during the 2013 Confederations Cup. Pernambuco played an important role in spreading the virus to other Brazilian states. Our results also underscore the long cryptic circulation of ZIKV in all analyzed locations in Brazil. Conclusions: This study brings new insights about the early moments of ZIKV in the Americas, especially regarding the Brazil-Haiti cluster at the base of the American clade and describing for the first time migration patterns within Brazil

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Aplicação de programação genética gramatical multiobjetiva no estudo do efeito de múltiplas infecções e ambiente no desenvolvimento de atopia e fenótipos de asma

In the last decades cases of asthma and other allergic diseases have increased greatly throughout the world, being nowadays a major public health problem. The causes of this increased prevalence are unknown, however the most accepted hypothesis is that it comes from the reduction of childhood infections as a consequence of the recent improvement in hygiene conditions. This reduction of infections can lead to anomalous development of the immune system, thus increasing the chance of developing allergies, including asthma. Asthma and other allergies are complex pathologies caused by genetical and environmental factors, so the use of computational tools such as genetic programming can contribute to the understanding of these diseases. We applied the Multiobjective Grammatical Genetic Programming (MGGP) technique to data obtained from a cohort of 1445 children to generate models which may represent how the relationships between infections and environment may explain the development of allergies and asthma. To assess the presence of asthma, a questionnaire was used and allergy measurements were performed on IgE antibodies against common allergens and skin reactivity test. The results obtained show that the models generated by MGGP show a performance in accuracy that is competitive with those obtained by the algorithm C4.5 and multiple logistic regression for the different outcomes. The results obtained by MGGP are easy to interpret, and capable of finding complex relationship relevant to the understanding of these complex pathologies, therefore MGGP is a powerful tool to help understand these conditions.Nas últimas décadas os casos de asma e demais doenças alérgicas tiveram grande aumento em todo o mundo, sendo atualmente um grande problema de saúde pública. As causas do aumento da prevalência destas patologias são desconhecidas, porém a hipótese mais aceita é que seja oriunda da redução de infecções na infância como consequência da recente melhora nas condições de higiene. Esta redução das infecções pode levar ao desenvolvimento anômalo do sistema imune, aumentando assim a chance de desenvolver alergias e a asma. Tanto a asma como as demais alergias são patologias complexas, causadas por fatores genéticos e ambientais, de modo que o uso de ferramentas computacionais, tais como a programação genética podem contribuir para a compreensão destas doenças. Aplicou-se a técnica de Programação Genética Gramatical Multiobjetivo (MGGP) em dados obtidos de um coorte de 1445 crianças entre 4 e 11 anos para gerar modelos os quais possam representar como as relações entre infecções e ambiente podem explicar o desenvolvimento de atopia e asma. Para avaliar a presença de asma foi usado um questionário do ISAAC fase II e para avaliar atopia foram realizadas medições de anticorpos IgE contra alérgenos comuns e teste de reatividade cutânea. Os resultados obtidos mostram que os modelos gerados pela MGGP apresentam desempenho em acurácia competitivos aos obtidos pelo algoritmo C4.5 e regressão logística múltipla para os diferentes desfechos. Os resultados obtidos pela MGGP são de fácil interpretação, e capazes de encontrar relações complexas relevantes para o entendimento destas patologias, sendo assim, a MGGP é uma poderosa ferramenta para ajudar a compreender essas condições

The effect of single and multiple infections on atopy and wheezing in children.

The findings provide support for the idea that the hygiene hypothesis is operating in an urban Latin American context, but its expression is thus far restricted to the atopic status of patients and not the perceived asthma symptoms