Luciana O. Andrade

Genetic Characterization of Trypanosoma cruzi Directly from Tissues of Patients with Chronic Chagas Disease : Differential Distribution of Genetic Types into Diverse Organs

We have previously shown that a low-stringency single-specific primer-polymerase chain reaction (LSSP- PCR) is a highly sensitive and reproducible technique for the genetic profiling of Trypanosoma cruzi parasites directly in tissues from infected animals and humans. By applying LSSP-PCR to the study of the variable region of kinetoplast minicircle from T. cruzi, the intraspecific polymorphism of the kinetoplast-deoxyribonucleic acid (kDNA) sequence can be translated into individual kDNA signatures. In the present article, we report on our success using the LSSP-PCR technique in profiling the T. cruzi parasites present in the hearts of 13 patients with chagasic cardiopathy and in the esophagi of four patients (three of them with chagasic megaesophagus). In two patients, one with the cardiodigestive clinical form of Chagas disease and the other with cardiopathy and an esophageal inflammatory process, we could study both heart and esophagus and we detected distinct kDNA signatures in the two organs. This provides evidence of a differential tissue distribution of genetically diverse T. cruzi populations in chronic Chagas disease, suggesting that the genetic variability of the parasite is one of the determining factors of the clinical form of the disease.

The Trypanosoma cruzi-host-cell interplay: location, invasion, retention.

Chagas disease is a debilitating human illness caused by infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. A capacity to invade and replicate within many different cell types is a cornerstone of the remarkable fitness of this parasite. Although invasion occurs independently of actin polymerization, the host cell still participates in the process, often in unexpected ways. Recent surprising findings indicate that host-cell lysosomes are indispensable, either by directly mediating invasion or by retaining these highly motile parasites inside cells.

Differential tissue distribution of diverse clones of Trypanosoma cruzi in infected mice

Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, presents variable clinical course but the phenomena underlying this variability remain largely unknown. T. cruzi has a clonal population structure and infecting strains are often multiclonal. T. cruzi genetic variability could be a determinant of differential tissue tropism or distribution and consequently of the clinical forms of the disease. We tested this hypothesis by using low-stringency single specific primer polymerase chain reaction (LSSP-PCR) to type genetically the parasites in tissues of experimental infected mice. BALB/c mice were simultaneously inoculated with two different T. cruzi populations (JG strain and Coll.7G2 clone). Doubly infected animals showed clear differential tissue distribution for the two populations (chronic phase). Our results indicate a significant influence of the genetic polymorphism of infecting T. cruzi populations in the pathogenesis of chronic Chagas disease.

Lysosomal Fusion Is Essential for the Retention of Trypanosoma cruzi Inside Host Cells

Trypomastigotes, the highly motile infective forms of Trypanosoma cruzi, are capable of infecting several cell types. Invasion occurs either by direct recruitment and fusion of lysosomes at the plasma membrane, or through invagination of the plasma membrane followed by intracellular fusion with lysosomes. The lysosome-like parasitophorous vacuole is subsequently disrupted, releasing the parasites for replication in the cytosol. The role of this early residence within lysosomes in the intracellular cycle of T. cruzi has remained unclear. For several other cytosolic pathogens, survival inside host cells depends on an early escape from phagosomes before lysosomal fusion. Here, we show that when lysosome-mediated T. cruzi invasion is blocked through phosophoinositide 3-kinase inhibition, a significant fraction of the internalized parasites are not subsequently retained inside host cells for a productive infection. A direct correlation was observed between the lysosomal fusion rates after invasion and the intracellular retention of trypomastigotes. Thus, formation of a parasitophorous vacuole with lysosomal properties is essential for preventing these highly motile parasites from exiting host cells and for allowing completion of the intracellular life cycle.

Evidence for Trypanosoma cruzi in adipose tissue in human chronic Chagas disease

Trypanosoma cruzi the cause of Chagas disease persists in tissues of infected experimental animals and humans. Here we demonstrate the persistence of the parasite in adipose tissue from of three of 10 elderly seropositive patients with chronic chagasic heart disease. Nine control patients had no parasites in the fat. We also demonstrate that T. cruzi parasitizes primary adipocytes in vitro. Thus, in humans as in mice the parasite may persist in adipose tissue for decades and become a reservoir of infection.

The MHC Gene Region of Murine Hosts Influences the Differential Tissue Tropism of Infecting Trypanosoma cruzi Strains

We have previously demonstrated that both parasite genetic variability and host genetic background were important in determining the differential tissue distribution of the Col1.7G2 and JG T. cruzi monoclonal strains after artificial infections in mice. We observed that the JG strain was most prevalent in hearts of mouse lineages with the MHC haplotype H-2 d (BALB/c and DBA2), while Col1.7G2 was predominant in hearts from C57BL/6 mice, which have the H-2 b haplotype. To assess whether the MHC gene region indeed influenced tissue tropism of T. cruzi, we used the same two parasite strains to infect C57BL/6 (H-2 b) and C57BLKS/J (H-2 d) mice; the latter strain results from the introgression of DBA2 MHC region into the C57BL/6 background. We also performed ex vivo infections of cardiac explants from four congenic mice lineages with the H-2 b and H-2 d haplotypes arranged in two different genetic backgrounds: C57BLKS/J (H-2 d) versus C57BL/6 (H-2 b) and BALB/c (H-2 d) versus BALB/B10-H2b (H-2 b). In agreement with our former observations, Col1.7G2 was predominant in hearts from C57BL/6 mice (H-2 b), but we observed a clear predominance of the JG strain in hearts from C57BLKS/J animals (H-2 d). In the ex vivo experiments Col1.7G2 also prevailed in explants from H-2 b animals while no predominance of any of the strains was observed in H-2 d mice explants, regardless of the genetic background. These observations clearly demonstrate that the MHC region influences the differential tissue distribution pattern of infecting T. cruzi strains, which by its turn may be in a human infection the determinant for the clinical forms of the Chagas disease.

Oxidative Stress and DNA Lesions: The Role of 8-Oxoguanine Lesions in Trypanosoma cruzi Cell Viability

The main consequence of oxidative stress is the formation of DNA lesions, which can result in genomic instability and lead to cell death. Guanine is the base that is most susceptible to oxidation, due to its low redox potential, and 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) is the most common lesion. These characteristics make 8-oxoG a good cellular biomarker to indicate the extent of oxidative stress. If not repaired, 8-oxoG can pair with adenine and cause a G:C to T:A transversion. When 8-oxoG is inserted during DNA replication, it could generate double-strand breaks, which makes this lesion particularly deleterious. Trypanosoma cruzi needs to address various oxidative stress situations, such as the mammalian intracellular environment and the triatomine insect gut where it replicates. We focused on the MutT enzyme, which is responsible for removing 8-oxoG from the nucleotide pool. To investigate the importance of 8-oxoG during parasite infection of mammalian cells, we characterized the MutT gene in T. cruzi (TcMTH) and generated T. cruzi parasites heterologously expressing Escherichia coli MutT or overexpressing the TcMTH enzyme. In the epimastigote form, the recombinant and wild-type parasites displayed similar growth in normal conditions, but the MutT-expressing cells were more resistant to hydrogen peroxide treatment. The recombinant parasite also displayed significantly increased growth after 48 hours of infection in fibroblasts and macrophages when compared to wild-type cells, as well as increased parasitemia in Swiss mice. In addition, we demonstrated, using western blotting experiments, that MutT heterologous expression can influence the parasite antioxidant enzyme protein levels. These results indicate the importance of the 8-oxoG repair system for cell viability.

The MASP Family of Trypanosoma cruzi: Changes in Gene Expression and Antigenic Profile during the Acute Phase of Experimental Infection

Background Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease, a debilitating illness that affects millions of people in the Americas. A major finding of the T. cruzi genome project was the discovery of a novel multigene family composed of approximately 1,300 genes that encode mucin-associated surface proteins (MASPs). The high level of polymorphism of the MASP family associated with its localization at the surface of infective forms of the parasite suggests that MASP participates in host–parasite interactions. We speculate that the large repertoire of MASP sequences may contribute to the ability of T. cruzi to infect several host cell types and/or participate in host immune evasion mechanisms. Methods By sequencing seven cDNA libraries, we analyzed the MASP expression profile in trypomastigotes derived from distinct host cells and after sequential passages in acutely infected mice. Additionally, to investigate the MASP antigenic profile, we performed B-cell epitope prediction on MASP proteins and designed a MASP-specific peptide array with 110 putative epitopes, which was screened with sera from acutely infected mice. Findings and Conclusions We observed differential expression of a few MASP genes between trypomastigotes derived from epithelial and myoblast cell lines. The more pronounced MASP expression changes were observed between bloodstream and tissue-culture trypomastigotes and between bloodstream forms from sequential passages in acutely infected mice. Moreover, we demonstrated that different MASP members were expressed during the acute T. cruzi infection and constitute parasite antigens that are recognized by IgG and IgM antibodies. We also found that distinct MASP peptides could trigger different antibody responses and that the antibody level against a given peptide may vary after sequential passages in mice. We speculate that changes in the large repertoire of MASP antigenic peptides during an infection may contribute to the evasion of host immune responses during the acute phase of Chagas disease.

Membrane Cholesterol Removal Changes Mechanical Properties of Cells and Induces Secretion of a Specific Pool of Lysosomes

In a previous study we had shown that membrane cholesterol removal induced unregulated lysosomal exocytosis events leading to the depletion of lysosomes located at cell periphery. However, the mechanism by which cholesterol triggered these exocytic events had not been uncovered. In this study we investigated the importance of cholesterol in controlling mechanical properties of cells and its connection with lysosomal exocytosis. Tether extraction with optical tweezers and defocusing microscopy were used to assess cell dynamics in mouse fibroblasts. These assays showed that bending modulus and surface tension increased when cholesterol was extracted from fibroblasts plasma membrane upon incubation with MβCD, and that the membrane-cytoskeleton relaxation time increased at the beginning of MβCD treatment and decreased at the end. We also showed for the first time that the amplitude of membrane-cytoskeleton fluctuation decreased during cholesterol sequestration, showing that these cells become stiffer. These changes in membrane dynamics involved not only rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton, but also de novo actin polymerization and stress fiber formation through Rho activation. We found that these mechanical changes observed after cholesterol sequestration were involved in triggering lysosomal exocytosis. Exocytosis occurred even in the absence of the lysosomal calcium sensor synaptotagmin VII, and was associated with actin polymerization induced by MβCD. Notably, exocytosis triggered by cholesterol removal led to the secretion of a unique population of lysosomes, different from the pool mobilized by actin depolymerizing drugs such as Latrunculin-A. These data support the existence of at least two different pools of lysosomes with different exocytosis dynamics, one of which is directly mobilized for plasma membrane fusion after cholesterol removal.

Differential tissue tropism of Trypanosoma cruzi strains: an in vitro study

We have previously demonstrated selection favoring the JG strain of Trypanosoma cruzi in hearts of BALB/c mice that were chronically infected with an equal mixture of the monoclonal JG strain and a clone of the Colombian strain, Col1.7G2. To evaluate whether cell invasion efficiency drives this selection, we infected primary cultures of BALB/c cardiomyocytes using these same T. cruzi populations. Contrary to expectation, Col1.7G2 parasites invaded heart cell cultures in higher numbers than JG parasites; however, intracellular multiplication of JG parasites was more efficient than that of Col1.7G2 parasites. This phenomenon was only observed for cardiomyocytes and not for cultured Vero cells. Double infections (Col1.7G2 + JG) showed similar results. Even though invasion might influence tissue selection, our data strongly suggest that intracellular development is important to determine parasite tissue tropism.