Decreasing parasitic brain cysts with combination drug-therapy

The apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii is able to infect virtually all warm-blooded animals and is estimated to infect up to 30% of the human world population. The chronic stage of infection, in which the parasite resides as intracellular cysts in host muscles, organs, and the brain, is lifelong and currently has no treatments available to alleviate infection. Chronic infection is thought to be asymptomatic in immunocompetent individuals, although more studies have begun to look at associations between chronic T. gondii infection and neurobehavioral disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder I, and epilepsy. Several FDA-approved drugs have been shown to significantly decrease T. gondii cysts in hosts, but none of the drugs have completely eliminated infection when administered alone. The goal of this study was to evaluate combinations of FDA-approved drugs against chronic T. gondii infection in order to completely eradicate the chronic cyst stage of infection or decrease cyst burden more than previously described. We hypothesized that we could significantly reduce cyst burden in T. gondii chronically infected mice by combining FDA-approved drug treatments that have shown efficacy against T. gondii infection