Pesquisa | SciELO

Cardiac damage is a frequent manifestation of Chagas disease, which is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient, the deficiency of which has been implicated in the development of cardiomyopathy. Our group has previously demonstrated that Se supplementation prevents myocardial damage during acute T. cruzi infection in mice. In this study, we analyzed the effect of Se treatment in cases of T. cruzi infection using prevention and reversion schemes. In the Se prevention scheme, mice were given Se supplements (2 ppm) starting two weeks prior to inoculation with T. cruzi(Brazil strain) and continuing until 120 days post-infection (dpi). In the Se reversion scheme, mice were treated with Se (4 ppm) for 100 days, starting at 160 dpi. Dilatation of the right ventricle was observed in the infected control group at both phases of T. cruzi infection, but it was not observed in the infected group that received Se treatment. Surviving infected mice that were submitted to the Se reversion scheme presented normal P wave values and reduced inflammation of the pericardium. These data indicate that Se treatment prevents right ventricular chamber increase and thus can be proposed as an adjuvant therapy for cardiac alterations already established by T. cruziinfection.

Chagas disease, a neglected illness, affects nearly 12-14 million people in endemic areas of Latin America. Although the occurrence of acute cases sharply has declined due to Southern Cone Initiative efforts to control vector transmission, there still remain serious challenges, including the maintenance of sustainable public policies for Chagas disease control and the urgent need for better drugs to treat chagasic patients. Since the introduction of benznidazole and nifurtimox approximately 40 years ago, many natural and synthetic compounds have been assayed against Trypanosoma cruzi, yet only a few compounds have advanced to clinical trials. This reflects, at least in part, the lack of consensus regarding appropriate in vitro and in vivo screening protocols as well as the lack of biomarkers for treating parasitaemia. The development of more effective drugs requires (i) the identification and validation of parasite targets, (ii) compounds to be screened against the targets or the whole parasite and (iii) a panel of minimum standardised procedures to advance leading compounds to clinical trials. This third aim was the topic of the workshop entitled Experimental Models in Drug Screening and Development for Chagas Disease, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the 25th and 26th of November 2008 by the Fiocruz Program for Research and Technological Development on Chagas Disease and Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. During the meeting, the minimum steps, requirements and decision gates for the determination of the efficacy of novel drugs for T. cruzi control were evaluated by interdisciplinary experts and an in vitro and in vivo flowchart was designed to serve as a general and standardised protocol for screening potential drugs for the treatment of Chagas disease.

Cód. do Índice	Elemento
ti	título do artigo
au	autor
kw	palavras-chave do artigo
subject	assunto (palavras do título, resumo e palavras-chave)
ab	resumo
ta	título abreviado da revista (ex. Cad. Saúde Pública)
journal_title	título completo da revista (ex. Cadernos de Saúde Pública)
la	código do idioma da publicação (ex. pt - Português, es - Espanhol)
type	tipo do documento
pid	identificador da publicação
publication_year	ano de publicação do artigo
sponsor	financiador
aff_country	código do país de afiliação do autor
aff_institution	instituição de afiliação do autor
volume	volume do artigo
issue	número do artigo
elocation	elocation
doi	número DOI
issn	ISSN da revista
in	código da coleção SciELO (ex. scl - Brasil, col - Colômbia)
use_license	código da licença de uso do artigo

Não foram encontrados documentos para sua pesquisa