Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Infect Dis. May 25, 2017; 7(2): 21-31
Published online May 25, 2017. doi: 10.5495/wjcid.v7.i2.21
Antioxidant enzyme profile of two clinical isolates of Entamoeba histolytica varying in sensitivity to antiamoebic drugs
Lakshmi Rani Iyer, Neha Banyal, Shailendra Naik, Jaishree Paul
Lakshmi Rani Iyer, Neha Banyal, Shailendra Naik, Jaishree Paul, School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India
Author contributions: Iyer LR and Paul J conceived and designed the experiments; Iyer LR, Banyal N and Naik S performed the experiments; Paul J contributed reagents, material, analysis tools; Iyer LR, Banyal N and Paul J analyzed the data; Iyer LR and Paul J prepared the manuscript; Iyer LR and Paul J participated in revising the manuscript.
Supported by WOS-A grant from Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, Government of India to Iyer LR, No. SR/WOS-A/LS-98/2007; “Programme support on molecular parasitology”, Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi, India to Paul J, No. BT/01/CEIB/11/v/08.
Institutional review board statement: All stool samples from patients were taken after informed consent and ethical permission was obtained for participation in the study (Government of India, Institute Ethics committee, Safdarjung hospital and VMMC, letter no VMMC/SJH/PROJECT/JAN-14/21).
Conflict-of-interest statement: To the best of our knowledge, no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Jaishree Paul, School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110067, India. jpaul33@hotmail.com
Telephone: +91-11-26704156 Fax: +91-11-26742558
Received: September 23, 2016
Peer-review started: September 26, 2016
First decision: November 2, 2016
Revised: January 11, 2017
Accepted: February 10, 2017
Article in press: February 13, 2017
Published online: May 25, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: Due to overuse of the mainstay drug against amoebiasis in an endemic country like India, there are concerns regarding the development of resistance towards metronidazole by the parasite. When Entamoeba histolytica (E. histolytica) from stool samples of diarrheal patients were cultivated in xenic medium, two clinical isolates of E. histolytica showed differential tolerance to the commonly used drug metronidazole. A new drug Auranofin was found to be effective on the isolate with higher tolerance to metronidazole. This was shown by inhibition of the antioxidant enzyme thioredoxin reductase as monitored by mRNA expression of TrxR gene and its enzyme activity.