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• Ximénez, C
• Cerritos, R
• Rojas, L
• Dolabella, S
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• González, E
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• Valenzuela, O
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• Ximénez, C
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• González, E
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(3), 1105-1120; doi:10.3390/ijerph7031105

Article

Human Amebiasis: Breaking the Paradigm?

Cecilia Ximénez ^1,* , Rene Cerritos ^1,2 , Liliana Rojas ¹ , Silvio Dolabella ³ , Patricia Morán ¹ , Mineko Shibayama ⁴ , Enrique González ¹ , Alicia Valadez ¹ , Eric Hernández ¹ , Olivia Valenzuela ⁵ , Angélica Limón ¹ , Oswaldo Partida ¹  and Edwards F. Silva ⁶

¹ Department of Experimental Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, 04510, Mexico ² Department of Zoology, ENCB, National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), México City, 11340, Mexico ³ Department of Morphology, Laboratory of Parasitology, Federal University of Sergipe, Aracaju, Sergipe, 49100-000, Brazil ⁴ Department of Infectomic and Molecular Pathogenesis, (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, 07360, Mexico ⁵ Department of Chemistry and Biological Science, University of Sonora (UNISON), Hermosillo, Sonora, 83000, Mexico ⁶ Department of Parasitology, Institute for Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 31270-901, Brazil

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 19 December 2009; in revised form: 2 February 2010 / Accepted: 8 March 2010 / Published: 16 March 2010

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Epidemiology)

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Abstract: For over 30 years it has been established that the Entamoeba histolytica protozoan included two biologically and genetically different species, one with a pathogenic phenotype called E. histolytica and the other with a non-pathogenic phenotype called Entamoeba dispar. Both of these amoebae species can infect humans. E. histolytica has been considered as a potential pathogen that can cause serious damage to the large intestine (colitis, dysentery) and other extraintestinal organs, mainly the liver (amebic liver abscess), whereas E. dispar is a species that interacts with humans in a commensal relationship, causing no symptoms or any tissue damage. This paradigm, however, should be reconsidered or re-evaluated. In the present work, we report the detection and genotyping of E. dispar sequences of DNA obtained from patients with amebic liver abscesses, including the genotyping of an isolate obtained from a Brazilian patient with a clinical diagnosis of intestinal amebiasis that was previously characterized as an E. dispar species. The genetic diversity and phylogenetic analysis performed by our group has shown the existence of several different genotypes of E. dispar that can be associated to, or be potentiality responsible for intestinal or liver tissue damage, similar to that observed with E. histolytica.

Keywords: human amebiasis; E. histolytica; E. dispar;genetic diversity; phylogeny

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