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 sele...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 2011-01, Vol.105 (6)
Main Authors: Andrade, Luciana O, Galvão, Lúcia M.C, Meirelles, Maria de Nazareth S.L, Chiari, Egler, Pena, Sergio D.J, Macedo, Andrea M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Trypanosoma cruzi - Chagas disease - tissue tropism - cardiomyocytes
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1678-8060