The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism

The highly prevalent parasite Toxoplasma gondii manipulates its host's behavior. In infected rodents, the behavioral changes increase the likelihood that the parasite will be transmitted back to its definitive cat host, an essential step in completion of the parasite's life cycle. The mech...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Prandovszky, Emese, Gaskell, Elizabeth, Martin, Heather, Dubey, J. P., Webster, Joanne P., McConkey, Glenn A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2011
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177840/

id	pubmed-3177840
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-31778402011-09-28 The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism Prandovszky, Emese Gaskell, Elizabeth Martin, Heather Dubey, J. P. Webster, Joanne P. McConkey, Glenn A. Research Article The highly prevalent parasite Toxoplasma gondii manipulates its host's behavior. In infected rodents, the behavioral changes increase the likelihood that the parasite will be transmitted back to its definitive cat host, an essential step in completion of the parasite's life cycle. The mechanism(s) responsible for behavioral changes in the host is unknown but two lines of published evidence suggest that the parasite alters neurotransmitter signal transduction: the disruption of the parasite-induced behavioral changes with medications used to treat psychiatric disease (specifically dopamine antagonists) and identification of a tyrosine hydroxylase encoded in the parasite genome. In this study, infection of mammalian dopaminergic cells with T. gondii enhanced the levels of K+-induced release of dopamine several-fold, with a direct correlation between the number of infected cells and the quantity of dopamine released. Immunostaining brain sections of infected mice with dopamine antibody showed intense staining of encysted parasites. Based on these analyses, T. gondii orchestrates a significant increase in dopamine metabolism in neural cells. Tyrosine hydroxylase, the rate-limiting enzyme for dopamine synthesis, was also found in intracellular tissue cysts in brain tissue with antibodies specific for the parasite-encoded tyrosine hydroxylase. These observations provide a mechanism for parasite-induced behavioral changes. The observed effects on dopamine metabolism could also be relevant in interpreting reports of psychobehavioral changes in toxoplasmosis-infected humans. Public Library of Science 2011-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3177840/ /pubmed/21957440 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023866 Text en This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Prandovszky, Emese Gaskell, Elizabeth Martin, Heather Dubey, J. P. Webster, Joanne P. McConkey, Glenn A.
spellingShingle	Prandovszky, Emese Gaskell, Elizabeth Martin, Heather Dubey, J. P. Webster, Joanne P. McConkey, Glenn A. The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
author_facet	Prandovszky, Emese Gaskell, Elizabeth Martin, Heather Dubey, J. P. Webster, Joanne P. McConkey, Glenn A.
author_sort	Prandovszky, Emese
title	The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
title_short	The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
title_full	The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
title_fullStr	The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
title_full_unstemmed	The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism
title_sort	neurotropic parasite toxoplasma gondii increases dopamine metabolism
description	The highly prevalent parasite Toxoplasma gondii manipulates its host's behavior. In infected rodents, the behavioral changes increase the likelihood that the parasite will be transmitted back to its definitive cat host, an essential step in completion of the parasite's life cycle. The mechanism(s) responsible for behavioral changes in the host is unknown but two lines of published evidence suggest that the parasite alters neurotransmitter signal transduction: the disruption of the parasite-induced behavioral changes with medications used to treat psychiatric disease (specifically dopamine antagonists) and identification of a tyrosine hydroxylase encoded in the parasite genome. In this study, infection of mammalian dopaminergic cells with T. gondii enhanced the levels of K+-induced release of dopamine several-fold, with a direct correlation between the number of infected cells and the quantity of dopamine released. Immunostaining brain sections of infected mice with dopamine antibody showed intense staining of encysted parasites. Based on these analyses, T. gondii orchestrates a significant increase in dopamine metabolism in neural cells. Tyrosine hydroxylase, the rate-limiting enzyme for dopamine synthesis, was also found in intracellular tissue cysts in brain tissue with antibodies specific for the parasite-encoded tyrosine hydroxylase. These observations provide a mechanism for parasite-induced behavioral changes. The observed effects on dopamine metabolism could also be relevant in interpreting reports of psychobehavioral changes in toxoplasmosis-infected humans.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2011
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177840/
_version_	1611476686138769408

The Neurotropic Parasite Toxoplasma Gondii Increases Dopamine Metabolism

Similar Items