Trypanosoma cruzi

Gene expression and molecular modeling of the HSP104 chaperone of Trypanosoma cruzi

R. A. Campos, da Silva, M. L., da Costa, G. V., Bisch, P. M., Peralta, J. M., Silva, R., Rondinelli, E., and Ürményi, T. P., Gene expression and molecular modeling of the HSP104 chaperone of Trypanosoma cruzi, vol. 11, pp. 2122-2129, 2012.

Heat shock protein (HSP) 104 is a highly conserved molecular chaperone that catalyzes protein unfolding, disaggregation and degradation under stress conditions. We characterized HSP104 gene structure and expression in Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan parasite that causes Chagas’ disease. The T. cruzi HSP104 is an 869 amino-acid protein encoded by a single-copy gene that has the highest sequence similarity (76%) with that of T. brucei and the lowest (23%) with that of the human protein.

Identification of genes encoding hypothetical proteins in open-reading frame expressed sequence tags from mammalian stages of Trypanosoma cruzi

C. Martins, Reis-Cunha, J. L., Silva, M. N., Pereira, E. G., Pappas, Jr., G. J., Bartholomeu, D. C., and Zingales, B., Identification of genes encoding hypothetical proteins in open-reading frame expressed sequence tags from mammalian stages of Trypanosoma cruzi, vol. 10, pp. 1589-1630, 2011.

Approximately 50% of the predicted protein-coding genes of the Trypanosoma cruzi CL Brener strain are annotated as hypothetical or conserved hypothetical proteins. To further characterize these genes, we generated 1161 open-reading frame expressed sequence tags (ORESTES) from the mammalian stages of the VL10 human strain. Sequence clustering resulted in 435 clusters, consisting of 339 singletons and 96 contigs. Significant matches to the T. cruzi predicted gene database were found for ~94% contigs and ~69% singletons.

Haplotype distribution of five nuclear genes based on network genealogies and Bayesian inference indicates that Trypanosoma cruzi hybrid strains are polyphyletic

L. Tomazi, Kawashita, S. Y., Pereira, P. M., Zingales, B., and Briones, M. R. S., Haplotype distribution of five nuclear genes based on network genealogies and Bayesian inference indicates that Trypanosoma cruzi hybrid strains are polyphyletic, vol. 8, pp. 458-476, 2009.

Chagas disease is still a major public health problem in Latin America. Its causative agent, Trypanosoma cruzi, can be typed into three major groups, T. cruzi I, T. cruzi II and hybrids. These groups each have specific genetic characteristics and epidemiological distributions. Several highly virulent strains are found in the hybrid group; their origin is still a matter of debate. The null hypothesis is that the hybrids are of polyphyletic origin, evolving independently from various hybridization events.

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