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H Ginsburg

Publications and source records attributed to H Ginsburg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Impairment of macrophage functions after ingestion of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes or isolated malarial pigment.

Human monocyte-derived macrophages ingest diamide-treated red blood cells (RBC), anti-D immunoglobulin (Ig)G-opsonized RBC, or Plasmodium falciparum ring-stage parasitized RBC (RPRBC), degrade ingested hemoglobin rapidly, and can repeat the phagocytic cycle. Monocytes fed with trophozoite-parasitized RBC (TPRBC), which contain malarial pigment, or fed with isolated pigment are virtually unable to degrade the ingested material and to repeat the phagocytic cycle. Monocytes fed with pigment display a long-lasting oxidative burst that does not occur when they phagocytose diamide-treated RBC or RPRBC. The phorbol myristate acetate-elicited oxidative burst is irreversibly suppressed in monocytes fed with TPRBC or pigment, but not in monocytes fed with diamide-treated or IgG-opsonized RBC. This pattern of inhibition of phagocytosis and oxidative burst suggests that malarial pigment is responsible for the toxic effects. Pigment iron released in the monocyte phagolysosome may be the responsible element. 3% of total pigment iron is labile and easily detached under conditions simulating the internal environment of the phagolysosome, i.e., pH 5.5 and 10 microM H2O2. Iron liberated from pigment could account for the lipid peroxidation and increased production of malondialdehyde observed in monocytes fed with pigment or in RBC ghosts and liposomes incubated at pH 6.5 in presence of pigment and low amounts of H2O2. Removal of the labile iron fraction from pigment by repeated treatments with 0.1 mM H2O2 at pH 5.5 reduces pigment toxicity. It is suggested that iron released from ingested pigment is responsible for the intoxication of monocytes. In acute and chronic falciparum infections, circulating and tissue-resident phagocytes are seen filled with TPRBC and pigment particles over long periods of time. Moreover, human monocytes previously fed with TPRBC are unable to neutralize pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and tumor cells, and macrophage responses decline during the course of human and animal malaria. The present results may offer a mechanistic explanation for depression of cellular immunity in malaria.

Adenosine Triphosphate

Phagocytosis of Plasmodium falciparum-infected human red blood cells by human monocytes: involvement of immune and nonimmune determinants and dependence on parasite developmental stage.

The stage-dependent phagocytosis of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes (IRBC) opsonized with nonimmune serum has been investigated. An average of 2.9 red blood cell (RBC) harboring ring-forms (RIRBC) and 7.5 RBC infected with trophozoites (TIRBC) or schizonts (SIRBC) were ingested per monocyte, in comparison with 0.8 noninfected RBC (NRBC) or 5 RBC oxidatively damaged with diamide. Abrogation of generation of complement component C3b or blockage of its binding to the phagocyte inhibited phagocytosis of RIRBC by 78% to 95% and of TIRBC by 25% to 50%. Blockage of immunoglobulin G (IgG) binding reduced phagocytosis of both RIRBC and TIRBC nonsignificantly by 14%. Preincubation of monocytes with phosphatidylserine (PS)-containing liposomes reduced phagocytosis of TIRBC by 22%, but had little effect on RIRBC. Residual, noncomplement, non-IgG-, and non-PS-dependent phagocytosis amounted to 6% to 18% of total phagocytosis in RIRBC and TIRBC, respectively. RIRBC bound 2.5 times more protein A and 3.1 times more anti-C3c (a stable derivative of C3b) antibodies, and TIRBC bound 20 times more protein A and 6.8 times more anti-C3c antibodies than NRBC. Phagocytosis of oxidatively damaged RBC and RIRBC are similar, whereas a higher portion of phagocytosis appears to be noncomplement-dependent and PS-suppressible in TIRBC. It is concluded that RIRBC generate recognition signals similar to those present in oxidatively damaged or senescent RBC. Extensive membrane modifications in TIRBC produce additional, hitherto undefined signals that induce much higher and qualitatively distinct phagocytosis.

Animals

Quinoline-containing antimalarials--mode of action, drug resistance and its reversal. An update with unresolved puzzles.

Malaria constitutes one of the major health threats in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Yet, few advances were made in recent years in revealing the mode of action of the common and most economically affordable antimalarial drugs, the schizontocidal 4-aminoquinolines. Data presented indubitably repudiate the previous notions that these drugs act by either halting the feeding of the parasite on its host erythrocyte cytosol or repressing nucleic acid synthesis due to intercalation into the parasite's DNA. A novel target for drugs is outlined, i.e. they are shown to inhibit in vitro the release of iron from acidified host cell cytosol, consisting mostly of hemoglobin, a process that could provide this trace element to the parasite. Resistance to quinoline-containing drugs is the principal reason for the present resurgence of malaria. Drug-resistant parasites accumulate less of these weak base-like drugs in the acidic digestive vacuoles. A kinetic model is presented, indicating that diminishing drug accumulation is due to decreased vacuolar proton pump activity and is not a result of a putative multidrug resistance (MDR) efflux pump. Findings to date on the molecular biology of parasite mdr genes are reviewed. These indicate no correlation between gene expression or mutations and phenotypic drug resistance. Reversal of parasite drug resistance by relevant compounds in MDR cancer cells seems to involve mechanism(s) different from the inhibition of the MDR pump in cancer cells.

Animals

In vitro development of lymphocytes that function as progenitors for mucus-secreting lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells.

Two different types of cultures developed when two different interleukin 2 (IL-2) preparations were introduced into cultures of lymph node cells of nu/nu (nude) mice maintained on an embryonic fibroblast monolayer. In the first, human recombinant IL-2 (rIL-2) stimulated the generation of colonies of large cytotoxic cells identified as lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells that, when grown on mesenchyme fibroblastoid monolayers prepared from 16- to 18-day embryos, could be triggered to synthesize and secrete flowing mucoid material. In the second culture, crude supernatant from cultures of rat spleen cells stimulated by concanavalin A stimulated the appearance and multiplication of blast cells that, after 20 days, differentiated into lymphocytes. This population was homogeneously composed of "wandering" lymphocytes and could be kept in a stable resting form for at least 2 months without loss of viability. When exposed to rIL-2, this whole lymphocyte population underwent a transformation into blast cells that, on the fourth day, generated granules, became cytotoxic, and differentiated into granular mucus-secreting LAK cells. When low numbers of these transformed premitotic blast cells were plated on mitomycin C-treated embryonic fibroblast monolayers, one cell out of 15 to 20 generated a clone of LAK cells. The study demonstrates that both effector and "memory" arms of differentiation can be stimulated in vitro.

Animals

Effects of cinnamic acid derivatives on in vitro growth of Plasmodium falciparum and on the permeability of the membrane of malaria-infected erythrocytes.

Cinnamic acid derivatives (CADs) are known inhibitors of monocarboxylate transport across plasma and mitochondrial membranes. All derivatives were found to inhibit the growth of intraerythrocytic Plasmodium falciparum in culture, which is in correlation with their hydrophobic character. Parasites at the ring and trophozoite stages were equally susceptible to the different derivatives. This result could be attributed to their inhibition of the transport of lactate, the major product of parasite energy metabolism. However, unexpectedly, it was found that all derivatives also inhibit the translocation of carbohydrates and amino acids across the new permeability pathways induced in the host cell membrane by the parasite. This impediment correlated strictly with CADs' effect on parasite growth. Parasites residing in cells permeabilized by means of Sendai virus were less susceptible to the different drugs, a result which implies that in addition to the direct effect on parasite viability, the drugs may have inhibited some process in the host cell whose function may be vital for parasite growth. The effect of CADs on the ATP levels in infected cells, in virus-treated cells, and in the two cellular compartments of the infected cell revealed that the drugs caused a significant decline in ATP level in the parasite compartment, while they provoked only a small effect on ATP level in the intact cells and the host cell compartment. These observations suggest that CADs inhibit ATP production in the parasite and its utilization by the host cell.

Adenosine Triphosphate

Kinetic modelling of chloroquine uptake by malaria-infected erythrocytes. Assessment of the factors that may determine drug resistance.

The antimalarial chloroquine, by virtue of its weak base properties, concentrates in the acidic compartment(s) of the intraerythrocytic parasite. Drug accumulation is essential for it to exert its pharmacological activity. Drug resistance has been thought to result from insufficient acidification of drug-accumulating organelle(s), (due to weakened proton pump activity and/or proton leak) or to result from the action of the recently suggested active efflux drug pump. In this work we have devised a kinetic model which takes into account the various processes that have been postulated to account for acidification and drug fluxes. Using this model to analyse the time-course of chloroquine uptake and the steady-state levels of drug accumulation, in strains of Plasmodium falciparum which display variable drug resistance, we demonstrate that drug resistance is compatible with the existence of a weakened proton pump in the resistant parasite strains. Consistent with recent molecular studies that show no correlation between the presence of the multidrug efflux pump gene and the phenotypic expression of chloroquine resistance, our analysis fails to detect any such pump activity. We also show that analysis of drug efflux kinetics cannot distinguish between the possible modes of drug resistance.

Animals

Transport of lactate in Plasmodium falciparum-infected human erythrocytes.

The intraerythrocytic human malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum produces lactate at a rate that exceeds the maximal capacity of the normal red cell membrane to transport lactate. In order to establish how the infected cell removes this excess lactate, the transport of lactate across the host cell and the parasite membranes has been investigated. Transport of radiolabeled L-lactate across the host cell membrane was shown to increase ca. 600-fold compared to uninfected erythrocytes. It showed no saturation with [L-lactate] and was inhibited by inhibitors of the monocarboxylate carrier, cinnamic acid derivatives (CADs), but not by the SH-reagent p-chloromercuriphenyl sulfonic acid (PCMBS). These results suggest that L-lactate is translocated through CAD-inhibitable new pathways induced in the host cell membrane by parasite activity, probably by diffusion of the acid form and through a modified native monocarboxylate:H+ symporter. Continuous monitoring of extracellular pH changes occurring upon suspension of infected cells in isoosmotic Na-lactate solutions indicates that part of the lactate egress is mediated by anionic exchange through the constitutive, but modified, anion exchanger. The transport of L-lactate across the parasite membrane is rapid, nonsaturating, and insensitive to either CADs or PCMBS, or to the presence of pyruvate. L-lactate uptake increased transiently when external pH was lowered and decreased when delta pH was dissipated by the protonophore carbonylcyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazone (CCCP). These results are compatible with L-lactate crossing the parasite membrane either as the undissociated acid or by means of a novel type of lactate-/H+ symport.

4-Chloromercuribenzenesulfonate

Studies on the antimalarial mode of action of quinoline-containing drugs: time-dependence and irreversibility of drug action, and interactions with compounds that alter the function of the parasite's food vacuole.

The quinoline-containing antimalarial drugs chloroquine, quinine and mefloquine exert an irreversible inhibitory effect on erythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum grown in culture. Inhibition is time- and concentration-dependent and the full effect is observed after 2-6 hours of exposure to the drug. Washing of infected cells after drug exposure in the presence of NH4Cl to accelerate drug efflux, intensifies the inhibitory effect of chloroquine, probably due to the pH-dependent release of highly concentrated drug from the acidic food vacuole of the parasite. When both antimalarials and NH4Cl are present in the culture, drug effect is reduced, as expected from the demonstrable alkalinization of the food vacuole and the consequent reduction in drug accumulation. The protease inhibitor leupeptin inhibits digestion of ingested host cell cytosol, and thus inhibits parasite growth, though reversibly so (Rosenthal et al, J. Clin. Invest. 82 1560-1566 (1988)). Thus, although the antimalarials also inhibit the feeding process, this is not the cause of their irreversible action. Leupeptin is found to be antagonistic to antimalarials' action, suggesting that the drugs form complexes with products of host cell digestion that are responsible for irreversible inhibition of parasite growth.

Ammonium Chloride

Chronotherapy of malaria: identification of drug-sensitive stage of parasite and timing of drug delivery for improved therapy.

The cyclic nature of malarial fever in conjunction with the pharmacokinetic characteristics of antimalarial drugs, call for the conception of a chrono-therapeutic approach for the treatment of the disease. An experimental murine malarial model was devised using the highly synchronous species Plasmodium vinckei petteri to test this rationale. Sub-curative doses of chloroquine were injected sub-cutaneously to mice either during the prepatent period or during patent infection. Inspection of the effect of drug applied at different stages of the parasitic cycle, revealed that medium size trophozoites (MT) were the most susceptible stage to chloroquine, while ring and young trophozoite stages were refractory to the drug. Chloroquine given during these latter stages, affected the parasites when they developed into the MT stage. Drug treatment during the MT stage phase-shifted the schizogonic cycle by 18 hours. Hence, treatment with two consecutive injections given 18 hours apart, i.e. timed to the overwhelming presence of the MT stage in the circulation, gave the best therapeutic results.

Animals

Kinetic modelling of the response of Plasmodium falciparum to chloroquine and its experimental testing in vitro. Implications for mechanism of action of and resistance to the drug.

The antimalarial mode of action of chloroquine (CQ) has been investigated in great detail in recent years, but the overall mechanism is still controversial. Instead of further probing the molecular aspects of partial reactions, a model based on the weak base properties of CQ and its delta pH-driven accumulation in acid parasite compartments has been devised, and the integrated response of the parasite to the drug under different experimental conditions has been assayed to verify the validity of the model. Factors such as inoculum size (parasitemia.hematocrit) and medium pH were altered using CQ-sensitive (FCC1) and -resistant (FCR3, VNS) isolates of Plasmodium falciparum. Experimental results were in full agreement with the predictions of the model, implying that therapeutic concentrations of CQ do not raise the pH of the food vacuole, i.e. that alkalinization of the acid parasite compartments is an insufficient explanation for the antimalarial activity of CQ, and that there is no need to invoke an active QC efflux pump to explain drug resistance. Calculations based on the model and the experimental data demonstrate that resistance to CQ is correlated with higher pH and/or higher resistance of the intracellular target to the drug concentration in the parasite food vacuole. The data also have implications for the design and interpretation of in vitro CQ inhibitory tests.

Animals

Synthesis of chondroitin sulfate D and heparin proteoglycans in murine lymph node-derived mast cells. The dependence on fibroblasts.

Proteoglycans synthesized in cultured mast cells derived from horse serum-immunized lymph node cells were analyzed. Treatment of the 35S-proteoglycans extracted from these cells with either chondroitinase ABC or AC resulted in 95% +/- 7% and 84% +/- 7%, respectively (mean +/- S.E., n = 3), of the radioactivity associated with disaccharides eluting in the included volume of PD-10. The 35S-proteoglycans were not hydrolyzed by nitrous acid elimination treatment. The chondroitinase ABC-generated disaccharides were analyzed by aminocyano high performance liquid chromatography. 35S-Disaccharides eluted in a major peak at a retention time of 8.1 min, corresponding to the disaccharide of chondroitin 4-sulfate proteoglycan (delta Di-4S), and a second peak at 12 min, corresponding to the disaccharide of chondroitin sulfate D proteoglycan (delta Di-diSD). Further treatment with chondro-4-sulfatase did not affect the retention time of the disaccharide corresponding to delta Di-diSD whereas this peak disappeared after the digested proteoglycan was treated either by chondro-6-sulfatase or by both sulfatases. Therefore, this disaccharide was identified as chondroitin sulfate D. Quantification of the radiolabeled disaccharides showed that delta Di-diSD contributed 20% +/- 2% (n = 3) of the total sulfated disaccharides of the chondroitin sulfate of these cultured cells. The role of fibroblasts in inducing the shift of chondroitin sulfate D into heparin proteoglycan in these mast cells was also investigated by using three types of monolayers: mouse embryonic skin fibroblasts (MESF), rat embryonic skin fibroblasts (RESF), and 3T3 fibroblasts. 35S-Proteoglycans that were extracted from the lymph node-derived mast cells cultured for 30 days on MESF and on 3T3 fibroblast monolayers were 93% +/- 4% and 30% +/- 7% (n = 3) susceptible to nitrous acid elimination, respectively. No degradation by nitrous acid was observed in 35S-proteoglycans extracted from cells cultured on RESF monolayer. Since the MESF was found to be the most potent monolayer in the induction of heparin synthesis, the kinetics of changes in the synthesis of proteoglycan types were determined in lymph node-derived mast cells cultured on MESF for up to 30 days. It was found that the synthesis of chondroitin sulfate gradually declined whereas that of heparin starting between 4 and 7 days after plating gradually increased. From the 17th day on, only the synthesis of heparin was detected.

Animals

Secretion of mucoid material by lymphokine-activated killer cells: study by light and electron microscopy.

When lymph node cells from nude mice were grown on embryonic fibroblast monolayers together with rat interleukin-2, only one type of colonies developed. These colonies were composed of cytotoxic cells termed "granular/lymphokine-activated killer/mucus-secreting cells" (LAK-GM). An extensive differentiation course, in which all the cellular components were involved, ended with a population of short-lived, mature, nondividing large cells that apparently synthesized and deposited a flowing mucoid material (FMM) that stained distinctly blue with periodic acid-Schiff/alcian blue (PAS-Ab) at pH 1 and distinctly red by the naphthol AS-D-chloracetate method for specific esterase. So far, the best monolayers to trigger the FMM synthesis were those prepared from 16- to 18-day-old whole embryos. These cells were compared with LAK cells that developed on monolayers (such as embryonic skin or adult kidney) that did not trigger FMM synthesis. They were also compared with other cell types that differentiated in colonies on the fibroblast monolayers: histiocytes (fixed macrophages), mixed granulocytes/monocytes, mucosal mast cells; and with populations of mature rat T-killer cells developed on same mouse monolayers. Features distinctive to the secreting LAK-GM cells were presence of masses of membrane-limited vesicles that were strictly confined to the surface of the cells in FMM-containing colonies. All transitional forms of budding activity could be seen on the cell surface facing the masses. Within the same cells, many granules displayed varying degrees of degradation, the granular material being transformed into flocculent material that formed small pools facing each degraded surface. Other characteristics of the LAK-GM lineage were the accumulation of glycogen prior to the appearance of the FMM, the presence of several structures of a ribosome-lamella complex in the LAK-GM in colonies that did not accumulate FMM, and filopodia commonly emerging from the pole proximal to the nucleus. Of various fixation methods tried, only after treatment with absolute alcohol and subsequent drying was the FMM stained with PAS-Ab. By subsequent wetting, the capacity to be stained was irreversibly lost. After incubation of the living cultures with the enzymes hyaluronidase or chondroitinases AC or ABC, the FMM disappeared. These observations suggest a triggering mechanism by the embryonic mesenchymal fibroblastoid cells for synthesis and secretion of mucous material that is a proteoglycan of the chondroitin sulfate group.

Animals

Some reflections concerning host erythrocyte-malarial parasite interrelationships.

During the intraerythrocytic development of the malarial parasite, the host cell's structure and function are altered to such an extent that the infected red blood cell may be regarded as a finely tuned, although imperfect, symbiotic organism. Problems such as the control of the parasite's life and cell cycles, volume regulation of the malaria-infected erythrocyte, the energy metabolism of the malaria-infected red blood cell, and the possible metabolic purpose for parasite oxidative stressing of its host cell, seem worth addressing at the outset.

Animals

Alkalinization of the food vacuole of malaria parasites by quinoline drugs and alkylamines is not correlated with their antimalarial activity.

Quinoline-containing antimalarial drugs accumulate inside the acid food vacuole of the parasite where they inhibit the digestion of ingested host cell cytosol, and consequently, parasite growth. In order to verify whether this inhibition is caused by drug-induced alkalinization of the food vacuole, we investigated the accumulation of acridine orange (AO) as a vacuolar pH probe in intact Plasmodium falciparum-infected human erythrocytes as affected by the drugs chloroquine (CQ), 7H-quinoleine (7HQ), quinine (Q) and mefloquine (MQ). It was established by various criteria that AO accumulates primarily in the acid compartment(s) of the parasite as a function of the pH difference between it and the extracellular medium. This pH gradient was dissipated by the drugs in the rank order MQ greater than CQ greater than Q greater than 7HQ. The kinetics of vacuolar alkalinization and the concentration ranges at which it was observed imply that the monoprotic drugs MQ and Q exerted their effect mostly by translocating protons across the vacuolar membrane, i.e. they could cross the membrane as a protonated species, while the diprotic drugs CQ and 7HQ raised the vacuolar pH mostly by proton trapping. Similarly, hydrophobic alkylamines raised the vacuolar pH by proton translocation, while their relatively more polar congeners and ammonia did so by proton titration. However, the alkalinizing effect of each drug was observed at a concentration which was 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than the IC50 of its antimalarial effect. These results mean that vacuolar alkalinization is not the primary effect of antiparasitic action of quinoline antimalarials.

Acridine Orange

Effects of lysosomotropic detergents on the human malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum in in vitro culture.

Various lysosomotropic detergents were tested in this work on in vitro cultures of Plasmodium falciparum and are shown to be potent antimalarial agents. The order of antimalarial potency was similar to that of cell toxicity on mammalian cells in culture (Miller DK et al., J Cell Biol 97, 1841-51 (1983]. The most efficient agents, N-dodecyl-imidazole (NDI) and N-dodecyl morpholine (NDM) displayed IC50 values of 6.7 +/- 0.7 microM and 23 +/- 5 microM. The mechanism of action of NDI measured at IC50 concentrations displayed the following features: irreversible antimalarial effect after 15 min exposure of cells to drug; alkalinization of the parasite food vacuole; inhibition of protein synthesis; inhibition of host cell protein digestion by the parasite; lack of vacuolar membrane disruption; lack of effect on the rate of constitutive autoproteolysis. No biochemical or ultrastructural indications were found to support a detergent-like action of NDI and its structural congeners on the major acidic compartment of the parasite, the food vacuole. Rather, alkalinization of that compartment by weak-base accumulation properties of the amphiphilic drugs and ensuing protonophoric effect are likely to play a major role in the various parasite-associated properties affected by these drugs.

Ammonium Chloride