Study of host cell co-infection with two strains of Trypanosoma Cruzi

Abstract

Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, pathology of great importance medical in Latin America. This protozoan is a digenetic organism being able to switch their life cycle between an invertebrate and vertebrate host. T. cruzi life cycle features four distinct forms: epimastigote, amastigotes and metacyclic trypomastigotes and bloodstream trypomastigotes. The parasite infectivity is directly related to the strain and with the evolutionary form, extracellular amastigotes from G strain have high infectivity and CL strain low infectivity; on the other hand, trypomastigotes derived from culture from G strain present low infectivity, and parasites from CL strain high rate of infection. Mixed infections occur often in nature, and may involve pathogens of the same or distinct species, which may interfere with the infectivity patterns of pathogenic organisms involved. It is known that patients may be infected with more than one isolate of T. cruzi and poliparasitism studies on Chagas disease can contribute to the understanding of genetic variation of the parasite, its epidemiological characteristics, and the clinical course of disease and effectiveness of treatments currently available. This project will study T. cruzi strains that exhibit distinct patterns of infectivity (G and Cl strains), and will analyze the behavior of these parasites in co-inhabited cells compared to simple infection.