Project description:Shotgun sequencing of sleeping sickness patient blood. WARNING: these results cannot be compared with those from trypanosome poly(A)+ mRNA, because the poly(A) selection introduces substantial bias, including loss of long mRNAs. Details will appear in the publication. These are additional sequencing runs that match some from E-MTAB-5293
Project description:Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is the causative agent of the fatal human disease African sleeping sickness. Using Digital Gene Expression we have compared the transcriptome of a group 1 T.b.gambiense (Eliane) and a T.b.brucei (STIB 247).
Project description:Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is the causative agent of the fatal human disease African sleeping sickness. Using Digital Gene Expression we have compared the transcriptome of two T.b.brucei (STIB 247)xT.b.gambiense (STIB386) hybrids.
Project description:Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is the causative agent of the fatal human disease African sleeping sickness. Here we have compared the transcriptome of two different life cycle stages, the potentially human-infective bloodstream form and the non-human-infective procyclic stage, using digital gene expression (DGE) analysis.
Project description:Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is the causative agent of the fatal human disease African sleeping sickness. Using Digital Gene Expression we have compared the transcriptome of two isogenic T.b.gambiense lines that are either sensitive or resistant to human serum.
Project description:African trypanosomes, the causative agents of Human and Animal African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness, reside in tissue niches proposed to be important for disease outcome and transmission. Here, we demonstrate that parasites in the inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT) niche induce sexually dimorphic physiological and immunological responses. Following chronic Trypanosoma brucei infection, male mice experience weight loss, reduced adipose tissue mass and altered tissue function, as well as changes in feeding behaviour, whereas females do not. We identified that interleukin-17 (IL-17), a cytokine that we show is elevated in sleeping sickness patients, orchestrates a sex-specific response to T. brucei infection in experimental infections. Deletion of murine IL-17a/f abolishes infection-associated weight loss, alters feeding behaviour, and limits adipose tissue wasting in male mice only. We propose that these effects might be triggered locally in adipocytes via engagement of IL-17 with its cognate receptor leading to lipolysis and tissue wasting, and/or systemically, via IL-17 signalling in the hypothalamus, potentially suggesting that IL-17 signalling coordinates brain-adipose tissue communication during sleeping sickness. Our findings also suggest a key sex-dependent role for the IL-17 isoforms IL-17A and IL-17F in regulating adipose tissue and energy balance during infection. Altogether, the results presented here open new directions to understand energy balance and brain-adipose tissue communication during chronic infection.
Project description:Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is the causative agent of the fatal human disease African sleeping sickness. Here we have compared the transcriptome of two different life cycle stages, the potentially human-infective bloodstream form and the non-human-infective procyclic stage, using digital gene expression (DGE) analysis. Digital gene expression analysis was performed on RNA from 3 biological replicates of bloodstream cultured T.b. gambiense strain STIB 386 and compared to that from 3 biological replicates of procyclic cultured T.b. gambiense strain STIB 386.
Project description:In this experiment, mice from 3 strains A/J, Balb C and C57Bl6 were infected with Trypanosoma Congolense, IL1180 clone, African sleeping sickness, a disease which affects cattle in sub-saharan Africa. These mouse strains were chosen because they are a model for tolerance to infection in cattle, with A/J and Balb B being highly susceptible, and C57Bl6 being somewhat more tolerant to infection. Three tissues Kidney Liver and Spleen were harvested from cohorts at various timepoints: 0 (naive), 3, 7, 9 and 17 days post infection. Each condition thus comprises: Time, Tissue, Strain. For each condition, RNA extracts from individuals were pooled (5 per pool) prior to hybridisation.
Project description:Background: Sleeping sickness is caused by the extracellular parasite Trypanosoma brucei and is associated with neuroinflammation and neuropsychiatric disorders, including disruption of sleep/wake patterns, and is now recognised as a circadian disorder. Sleeping sickness is traditionally studied using murine models of infection due to the lack of alternative in vitro systems that fully recapitulate the cellular diversity and functionality of the human brain. The aim of this study is to develop a much-needed in vitro system that reduces and replaces live animals for the study of infections in the central nervous system, using sleeping sickness as a model infection. Methods: We developed a co-culture system using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cortical human brain organoids and the human pathogen T. b. gambiense to model host-pathogen interactions in vitro. Upon co-culture, we analysed the transcriptional responses of the brain organoids to T. b. gambiense over two time points. Results: We detected broad transcriptional changes in brain organoids exposed to T. b. gambiense, mainly associated with innate immune responses, chemotaxis, and blood vessel differentiation compared to untreated organoids. Conclusions: Our co-culture system provides novel, more ethical avenues to study host-pathogen interactions in the brain as alternative models to experimental infections in mice. Although our data support the use of brain organoids to model host-pathogen interactions during T. brucei infection as an alternative to in vivo models, future work is required to increase the complexity of the organoids ( e.g., addition of microglia and vasculature). We envision that the adoption of organoid systems is beneficial to researchers studying mechanisms of brain infection by protozoan parasites. Furthermore, organoid systems have the potential to be used to study other parasites that affect the brain significantly reducing the number of animals undergoing moderate and/or severe protocols associated with the study of neuroinflammation and brain infections.