IHEM   20887
INSTITUTO DE HISTOLOGIA Y EMBRIOLOGIA DE MENDOZA DR. MARIO H. BURGOS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Effect of drugs that modulate autophagy on Trypanosoma cruzi differentiation
Autor/es:
VANRELL MC, CASASSA AF, COLOMBO MI, ROMANO PS.
Lugar:
Mendoza
Reunión:
Congreso; XXVIII Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo.; 2010
Institución organizadora:
Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo
Resumen:
Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease adopts different forms during its biology cycle.  In the vector gut, Triatoma infestans, the replicative epimastigote form (E) differentiates to infective metacyclic trypomastigotes (MT). Trypomastigotes can invade a wide range of nucleated cells passing to amastigote form (A) into the citosol of host cells. Amastigotes are the intracellular replicative form indispensable to continue the cycle. Although the mechanisms that govern these changes are little know, it has been accepted that during the E to MT differentiation, starvation is a principal stimulus. Autophagy is an intracellular process mainly activated during starvation. We have studied the effect of drugs or conditions that regulate autophagy during E to MT (or T to A) differentiation of T. cruzi. Using the E from GFP-Y strain, we observed that the treatment with the autophagy inhibitor Wortmannin (200 mM), reduces the percentage of MT recovered during the in vitro differentiation, indicated as a reduction in the percentage of infected cells and number of parasites/cell. In the other hand the differentiation from T to A was significantly increased when the parasites were exposed to starvation or to the autophagy inductor Rapamycin (50 ng/ml). These results indicate that autophagy is a pathway that actively participates during T. cruzi differentiation process.