Project description:Trypanosoma vivax is a major pathogen of domestic cattle and wildlife across sub-Saharan Africa. For many years, the WTSI has had a research interest in developing a genome sequence for T. vivax, as part of a wider programme concerning African trypanosome parasites of Humans and animals. In 2012 a draft genome sequence for T. vivax Y486 was published by the WTSI and our collaborators in comparison with related species, T. brucei and T. congolense. This study identified numerous putative genes in T. vivax that have no known affinity and are therefore species-specific. A related transcriptomic study confirmed that some of these putative genes are transcribed, but lacked accuracy and was based on a single parasite life stage only. Until recently, it has not been possible to culture different T. vivax life stages in refined media. There is now the opportunity to use new approaches to produce whole cell RNA for both insect and bloodstream parasite stages. We sequence stage-specific cDNA and identify stage-specific genes, and compare these features with similar data already available for T. brucei and T. congolense, which display substantial differences in their developmental cycles. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/
2013-03-07 | E-ERAD-100 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Trypanosoma vivax DNA and RNA sequencing
Project description:Cattle trypanosomosis caused by Trypanosoma vivax is a widely distributed disease in Africa and Latin America. It causes significant losses in the livestock industry and is characterized by fever, parasitemia, anemia, lethargy, and weight loss. In this study we evaluated the virulence (capacity to multiply inside the host) and pathogenicity (ability to produce disease and/or mortality) patterns of two T. vivax strains (TvMT1 and TvLIEM176) in experimentally-infected sheep and determined the proteins differentially expressed in the proteomes of these two strains. There was a marked difference in the virulence and pathogenicity between both T. vivax strains: TvLIEM176 showed high virulence and moderate pathogenicity, whereas TvMT1 showed low virulence and high pathogenicity. In the proteomic analysis, we identified a total of 29 proteins associated with the different biological behaviour, of which 14 exhibited significant differences in their expression level between the two strains. The proteins evidenced in this study are considered potential virulence and pathogenicity biomarkers in T. vivax infections, and deserve further investigations to precise their functional role in the host-parasite interactions.
Project description:The parasitic flagellate Trypanosoma vivax is a cause of animal trypanosomiasis across Africa and South America. The parasite has a digenetic life cycle, passing between mammalian hosts and insect vectors, and a series of developmental forms adapted to each life cycle stage. Transcriptomic and proteomic studies of the related parasites T. brucei and T. congolense have shown how gene expression is regulated during their development. New methods for in vitro culture of the T. vivax insect stages have allowed us to describe global gene expression throughout the complete T. vivax life cycle for the first time. We combined transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of each life stage using RNA-seq and mass spectrometry respectively, to identify genes with patterns of preferential transcription or expression. While T. vivax is similar to related species in several ways, (e.g. developmental regulation of energy metabolism, restricted expression of a dominant variant antigen, and expression of ‘Fam50’ proteins in the insect mouthparts), we identify significant differences in gene expression affecting metabolism in the fly and a suite of T. vivax-specific genes with predicted cell-surface expression that are preferentially expressed in the mammal (‘Fam29, 30’) or the vector (‘Fam34, 35, 43’). Thus, T. vivax differs significantly from other African trypanosomes in the developmentally-regulated proteins it expresses on its cell surface and thus, in the structure of the host-parasite interface. These unique features may yet explain the species differences in life cycle and could, in the shape of bloodstream-stage proteins that do not undergo antigenic variation, provide targets for therapy.