Imaging African trypanosomes

Imaging African trypanosomes

Trypanosoma brucei are extracellular kinetoplastid parasites transmitted by the blood-sucking tsetse fly. They are responsible for the fatal disease human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness. In late-stage infection, trypanosomes cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and inv...

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Main Authors: MacLean, L, Myburgh, E, Rodgers, J, Price, H P
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2013
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992894/
id pubmed-3992894
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-39928942014-04-22 Imaging African trypanosomes MacLean, L Myburgh, E Rodgers, J Price, H P Review Articles Trypanosoma brucei are extracellular kinetoplastid parasites transmitted by the blood-sucking tsetse fly. They are responsible for the fatal disease human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness. In late-stage infection, trypanosomes cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and invade the central nervous system (CNS) invariably leading to coma and death if untreated. There is no available vaccine and current late-stage HAT chemotherapy consists of either melarsoprol, which is highly toxic causing up to 8% of deaths, or nifurtimox–eflornithine combination therapy (NECT), which is costly and difficult to administer. There is therefore an urgent need to identify new late-stage HAT drug candidates. Here, we review how current imaging tools, ranging from fluorescent confocal microscopy of live immobilized cells in culture to whole-animal imaging, are providing insight into T. brucei biology, parasite-host interplay, trypanosome CNS invasion and disease progression. We also consider how imaging tools can be used for candidate drug screening purposes that could lead to new chemotherapies. John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2013-09 2013-09-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3992894/ /pubmed/23790101 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pim.12046 Text en Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Parasite Immunology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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 MacLean, L
Myburgh, E
Rodgers, J
Price, H P
spellingShingle MacLean, L
Myburgh, E
Rodgers, J
Price, H P
Imaging African trypanosomes
author_facet MacLean, L
Myburgh, E
Rodgers, J
Price, H P
author_sort MacLean, L
title Imaging African trypanosomes
title_short Imaging African trypanosomes
title_full Imaging African trypanosomes
title_fullStr Imaging African trypanosomes
title_full_unstemmed Imaging African trypanosomes
title_sort imaging african trypanosomes
description Trypanosoma brucei are extracellular kinetoplastid parasites transmitted by the blood-sucking tsetse fly. They are responsible for the fatal disease human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness. In late-stage infection, trypanosomes cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and invade the central nervous system (CNS) invariably leading to coma and death if untreated. There is no available vaccine and current late-stage HAT chemotherapy consists of either melarsoprol, which is highly toxic causing up to 8% of deaths, or nifurtimox–eflornithine combination therapy (NECT), which is costly and difficult to administer. There is therefore an urgent need to identify new late-stage HAT drug candidates. Here, we review how current imaging tools, ranging from fluorescent confocal microscopy of live immobilized cells in culture to whole-animal imaging, are providing insight into T. brucei biology, parasite-host interplay, trypanosome CNS invasion and disease progression. We also consider how imaging tools can be used for candidate drug screening purposes that could lead to new chemotherapies.
publisher John Wiley & Sons Ltd
publishDate 2013
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992894/
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