'Mind-control' parasite Toxoplasma hides from the immune system with 2 key genes

 Originally published by Kamal Naha

A new study could help scientists find a cure to lifelong infections caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii.  (Image credit: KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)
 

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii hides in up to half of humans (opens in new tab), although it rarely causes symptoms. But when it infects mice, the single-cell organism can exert a kind of "mind control" to change the rodents' behavior and help itself spread. 

Now, researchers report being one step closer to curing T. gondii infections in humans, which can be lifelong due to the parasite's ability to morph into a dormant, defensive state. Two transcription factors — proteins that switch genes "on" and "off" — lie at the root of this metamorphosis, and the discovery opens avenues to block the process.

Often dubbed the "mind-control parasite," T. gondii takes over the minds (opens in new tab) of infected mice and steers them towards cats to become their next meal. This enables the parasites to jump into our feline friends, the only known hosts (opens in new tab) in which they can reproduce sexually. 

Read more

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Researchers define protocol for high-resolution imaging of living cells using atomic force microscopy

Image
  Originally published by Kanazawa Universit at www.phys.org, on September 5, 2023 Overview of the method for observing actin fibers in living cells using nanoendoscopy-AFM. Credit: STAR Protocols (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.xpro.2023.102468 Images of nanoscale structures inside living cells are in increasing demand for the insights into cellular structure and function that they can reveal. So far, the tools for capturing such images have been limited, but researchers led by Takeshi Fukuma and Takehiko Ichikawa at Kanazawa University have now devised and reported a full protocol for using atomic force microscopy (AFM) to image inside living cells . The research is published in the journal STAR Protocols . AFM was first developed in the 1980s and uses the changes in the forces between a sample surface and a nanoscale tip attached to a cantilever to identify surfaces and produce images of the topography with nanoscale resolution. The technique has grown increasingly sophistica...
Read more

How fast does a protein fold? Real-time technique captures the moment

Image
Proteins assume complex 3D shapes even faster than does DNA , which is a simpler molecule. Originally wri tten By  Katherine Bourzac and published in Nature on 9 March 2026 It can take less than a microsecond for proteins (artist’s impression) to fold into their 3D shapes. Credit: Christoph Burgstedt/Science Photo Library Scientists say they have made some of the first direct measurements of how long it takes an individual, ordinary protein to fold . The results were surprising: they found no relationship between a protein’s sequence or size and how long it takes to  fold into its 3D shape . And proteins seem to fold more efficiently than do other biomolecules, such as DNA — despite proteins having a more complex set of ingredients. The work was published today in  Physical Review Letters 1 . Read more
Read more

Chameleon’s Eyes Have Been Hiding a Secret

Image
Their wandering gaze results from a structural adaptation in their nerves Originally published By Devin Reese in Nautilus , on November 10, 2025   Chameleons’ bulging eyes do strange things; they swivel in different directions like periscopes as they peer around their surroundings. One eye may be fixed on you, while the other eye is trained on an insect scuttling away. Though scientists have been fascinated by this ability for centuries, the physiological mechanism that makes it possible has remained mysterious. Until now. A team of researchers has discovered that chameleons possess two coiled optic nerves that operate independently to bring two separate scenes into the reptile’s focus. They report their findings in a Scientific Reports paper published November 10,2025. Read more  
Read more