Tropical Diseases
About Tropical Diseases
Tropical diseases are diseases that are indigenous to subtropical or tropical regions and are less prevalent in temperate climates which are subject to seasonal changes. Whereas the term covers all communicable and non-communicable illnesses, genetic disorders, and conditions caused by nutritional deficiencies or environmental factors, we mostly understand tropical diseases to be of infectious nature. This is especially true, since rising migration and globalization have led to a faster spread of such diseases.
Besides socio-economic factors, high infection rates are largely attributed to the availability of many animal reservoirs for vector-borne transmission (e.g., bats, mosquitoes, flies), and a hot and moist climate accelerating replication of pathogens.
The WHO and other health programs established research institutions to study neglected infectious diseases, as they disproportionally affect low-income and marginalized regions in Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America, to provide monitoring-, diagnosis-, treatment-, and prevention tools to combat these diseases.
Our variety of peptide formats provide many necessary tools to monitor immune response of high-risk patients, epitope discovery, immunodominant antigen identification for development of vaccines, treatment solutions and diagnostics. Our peptides range from research-use-only to clinical formats that meet authority regulations.
List of common Tropical Diseases
The most commonly studied tropical diseases, for which we provide peptide tools, include:
JPT's peptide formats
Cellular Immune Response
- Antigen specific stimulation of T-cells
- Immune monitoring of high-risk patients
- Qualification of immunodominant antigens
- Validating clinical T-cell assays
- T-cell assays in
- High-throughput T-cell epitope discovery
- Monitoring of cellular immune response
- Clinical trials
Humoral Immune Response
- Immune monitoring of humoral responses
- Profiling of specific samples or antibodies
- Evaluation of co-infection
- Detection of epitopes and epitope spreading
- Immune monitoring of humoral responses
- epitope discovery and epitope mapping
- SPOT synthesis is a technique for custom synthesis of hundreds of membrane peptides in parallel
- fast and economical
Clinical Peptides
Ebola
Ebolavirus Disease
Ebola virus disease or ‘Ebola fever’ is an often lethal hemorrhagic fever. Occasionally, Ebolaviruses cause disease outbreaks, mostly in African countries. These viruses infect humans and other primates and are likely to spread from bats to humans through contact with blood, body fluids, and tissues of infected animals.
Ebolaviruses belong to the family of Filoviridae. Four of the six known ebolavirus species cause disease in humans: Sudan ebolavirus, Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Tai Forest ebolavirus, and Zaire ebolavirus, with the latter having the highest mortality rate (83% on average). The 2014-2016 Ebola outbreaks in West Africa were caused by a Zaire ebolavirus strain and were considered among the most severe to date in terms of mortality. All ebolaviruses are in risk group 4 (RG4) of human and animal pathogens according to the WHO.
About Ebolavirus
Ebolaviruses are single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses. Their genome codes for a number of proteins that are potentially relevant to the human immune response. These include, for example, a nucleoprotein (NP), a spike glycoprotein (GP), a polymerase cofactor, a transcription activator, and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.
If you are interested in viruses causing hemorrhagic fever, you may also be interested in the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), tools which will soon add to our catalog. It belongs to the genus of Orthonairoviruses and is tick-borne. It is also called the ‘Asian ebolavirus’, because the clinical picture in humans resembles ebolavirus disease and the underlying disease mechanisms appear very similar.
Tuberculosis
About M. tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis belongs to the family of Mycobacteriaceae and is the main cause for tuberculosis (TB). In most individuals M. tuberculosis does not cause acute clinical disease but remains a latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). Nevertheless, TB is still a severe and potentially lethal infection of all times causing about 1.5 million deaths annually.
Unfortunately, TB vaccines provide incomplete protection, but appear to be able to prevent the most severe clinical courses. Improving TB vaccines is the focus of ongoing research studies worldwide. In addition a range of immunological TB diagnostics tests are available including both established clinical tests and experimental approaches.
Current Research
Both the WHO and the United Nations defined global TB goals, to reduce infection rates and even to eradicate the epidemics by 2030, respectively.
One of these goals is the development of a new vaccine that overcomes the challenges of the current employed vaccine relying on M. bovis bacilli Calmette Guérin. More than a dozen TB vaccine candidates are under active clinical evaluation to prevent infection, disease, and recurrence. However, a reoccurring issue is the lack of reliable biomarkers to assess a vaccine’s efficacy. Furthermore, to monitor infections, affordable rapid-tests are being expanded. In 2021 the WHO issued a recommendation to improve access to testing and summarized innovations that are being investigated up to date.
We provide an extensive and continuously updated peptide catalog covering many antigens from Ag85 to ESAT-6 of secreted proteins allowing screening and monitoring humoral and cellular immune responses against these major TB antigens.
Zika
About Zika Virus and other Flaviviruses
Zika virus (ZIKV) belongs to the flaviviruses such as dengue virus, West Nile virus, yellow fever virus, Saint Louis encephalitis virus and tick-borne encephalitis virus. Flaviviruses carry a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA and most flaviviruses are transmitted by the bite from an infected arthropod (mosquito or tick). We offer specific Zika virus peptides, Zika peptide pools and Zika peptide microarrays (ZIKV peptides, ZIKV peptide pools, ZIKV peptide microarrays).
Zika Virus:
- Transmitted by the mosquitoes A. aegypti and A. albopictus
- Was first isolated in 1947 from the Zika Forest of Uganda
- From 2007 the virus spread across the Pacific Ocean to South America, leading to the Zika virus epidemic
- Zika virus causes Zika fever or Zika virus disease
- Usually shows no or only mild symptoms
- Zika can also spread from a pregnant women to the fetuses
- Causes microcephaly, severe brain malformations, and other birth defects in unborn children