الفهرس 
Toxoplasma gondiiOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that has a worldwide distribution (Munoz et al., 2011). Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular parasite that is responsible for a high significant morbidity and mortality especially in the immunocompromised and congenitally infected individuals. Cerebral toxoplasmosis is the main cause of death in these patients (Pereira-Chioccola et al., 2009). The treatment of toxoplasmosis is a huge challenge as there is no effective and safe treatment for it (Ma et al., 2013). The standard treatment is the combination of pyrimethamine (PYR) and sulfadiazine but this combined treatment is often associated with bone marrow suppression, liver and kidney problems which are intolerable by the patients (Anderson, 2005). So there is an urgent need for the development of new agents or combination of agents with better therapeutic efficacy and safety (Park and Nam, 2013). Introduction of nanotechnology into the medical field allowed the nanoparticles (NPs) to find its way as trial agents against toxoplasmosis (Bivas-Benita et al., 2003 and Prieto et al., 2006). Niosomes are novel drug delivery nanoparticles which have a high biological and physical stability that enable the delivery of the drug to its target site in a controlled manner (Mehta and Jindal, 2014). Thus, this study was carried out to evaluate the effect of PYR-loaded niosomes as compared to PYR alone in the treatment of acute toxoplasmosis in mice. In order to fulfill this aim, the following steps were done: Two hundred and forty Swiss albino mice were divided into three main groups as follows: group I: (Control group): This group included 80 mice that were subdivided equally into four subgroups: Subgroup Ia: 20 non-infected non-treated mice which were served as a control healthy group that were sacrificed at the beginning of the experiment for the comparative study. Subgroup Ib: 20 infected non-treated mice. Subgroup Ic: 20 non-infected mice that were injected intraperitoneally (IP) with 0.1 ml of the niosomes alone for four successive days. Subgroup Id: 20 non-infected mice that were injected intraperitoneally (IP) with 0.1 ml of DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) for four successive days. group II: (Infected PYR treated group): This group included 80 experimentally infected mice that were subdivided equally into two subgroups. These subgroups were treated with PYR alone in different doses according to Pissinate et al. (2014) as the following: Subgroup IIa: 40 mice were injected IP with PYR alone in a dose of 5 mg/kg/day. Subgroup IIb: 40 mice were injected IP with PYR alone in a dose of 10 mg/kg/day. group III: (Infected PYR-niosomes treated group): This group included 80 experimentally infected mice that were subdivided equally into two subgroups. These subgroups were treated with pyrimethamine-loaded niosmes (PYR-niosomes) in different doses according to Pissinate et al. (2014) as the following: Subgroup IIIa: 40 mice were injected IP with PYR-niosomes in a dose of 5 mg/kg/day. Subgroup IIIb: 40 mice were injected IP with PYR-niosomes in a dose of 10 mg/kg/day. The experimentally infected mice were inoculated intraperitoneally with the tachyzoites of the RH strain of Toxoplasma gondii in a dose of 3.5 x103 tachyzoites/ mouse. The treatment was initiated 24 hours postinfection in the studied groups and continued for four successive days.