Stress proteins in fungal diseases.

Heat shock proteins (hsps) are ubiquitous families of proteins, found in all organisms studied so far. They are highly conserved across the species barrier and serve fundamental functions in cell physiology. The term 'heat shock' was adopted because of the early observation of the heat-inducible nature of these proteins, although, as it is now realized that they can be induced by a variety of stressful stimuli, it is probably more appropriate to call them 'stress proteins'. The nomenclature of many hsps, for example hsp90, hsp70 and hsp60, reflects the approximate molecular mass of hsps within each of these families. For many bacterial and parasitic infections, hsps were first recognized as immunodominant antigens on immunoblots of extracts from the organism probed with immune sera, or in T-cell proliferation assays. They have now been identified in a range of fungal pathogens, again often linked to an immune response. In this symposium, we review the association of hsps with humoral immunity to candidosis and aspergillosis, cellular immunity to histoplasmosis, and the identification of hsp70 in another dimorphic fungus, Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. Finally, the crucial role of the membrane in setting the temperature of the heat shock response in yeasts is discussed.

Recovery from rabies in man.

A 45-year-old woman from Mendoza, Argentina, was severely bitten by a dog that died 4 days later. Before death, the dog was nervous, aggressive, and had occasional seizures. Ten days after the woman had been bitten, rabies vaccine treatment was begun: 14 daily doses of suckling mouse brain vaccine followed by 2 booster doses. Twenty-one days after the biting episode, she developed a cerebellar striatal syndrome, which persisted throughout several months, and severe encephalitic symptoms, which persisted for 75 days. After 13 months, recovery was nearly complete. The patient's serum and cerebrospinal fluid contained rabies-neutralizing antibodies reaching maximum titers of 1:640 000 and 1:160 000, respectively. Titers of this magnitude have never been previusly recorded after suckling mouse brain vaccine treatment. This phenomenon, together with the epidemiologic, clinical, and laboratory data presented, supports the conclusion of a nonfatal case of rabies in man.