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

2004 ◽  
Vol 200 (9) ◽  
pp. 1135-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana O. Andrade ◽  
Norma W. Andrews

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.

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 1628
Author(s):  
Rodolpho Ornitz Oliveira Souza ◽  
Marcell Crispim ◽  
Ariel Mariano Silber ◽  
Flávia Silva Damasceno

Trypanosoma cruzi is the aetiologic agent of Chagas disease, which affects people in the Americas and worldwide. The parasite has a complex life cycle that alternates among mammalian hosts and insect vectors. During its life cycle, T. cruzi passes through different environments and faces nutrient shortages. It has been established that amino acids, such as proline, histidine, alanine, and glutamate, are crucial to T. cruzi survival. Recently, we described that T. cruzi can biosynthesize glutamine from glutamate and/or obtain it from the extracellular environment, and the role of glutamine in energetic metabolism and metacyclogenesis was demonstrated. In this study, we analysed the effect of glutamine analogues on the parasite life cycle. Here, we show that glutamine analogues impair cell proliferation, the developmental cycle during the infection of mammalian host cells and metacyclogenesis. Taken together, these results show that glutamine is an important metabolite for T. cruzi survival and suggest that glutamine analogues can be used as scaffolds for the development of new trypanocidal drugs. These data also reinforce the supposition that glutamine metabolism is an unexplored possible therapeutic target.


2001 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 3916-3923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebeca Manning-Cela ◽  
Arantxa Cortés ◽  
Elena González-Rey ◽  
Wesley C. Van Voorhis ◽  
John Swindle ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Trypanosoma cruzi invasion of host cells involves several discrete steps: attachment, parasite internalization mediated by recruitment and fusion of host cell lysosomes, and escape from the parasitophorous vacuole to liberate amastigotes to multiply freely in the cytosol. This report describes the initial characterization of theLYT1 gene and the demonstration that the gene product is involved in cell lysis and infectivity. Mutational analysis demonstrated that deletion of LYT1 resulted in attenuation of infection, which was associated with diminished hemolytic activity. Reintroduction of LYT1 restored infectivity in null mutants, confirming the critical role of LYT1 in infection. Additionally, in vitro stage transition experiments withLYT1-deficient lines showed that these parasites converted to extracellular amastigote-like cells and metacyclic trypomastigotes more rapidly than wild-type parasites, suggesting that the diminished infectivity was not a result of the LYT1 deficiency that affected the parasite's ability to complete the life cycle.


1995 ◽  
Vol 198 (8) ◽  
pp. 1711-1715 ◽  
Author(s):  
T A Heming ◽  
D L Traber ◽  
F Hinder ◽  
A Bidani

The role of plasma membrane V-ATPase activity in the regulation of cytosolic pH (pHi) was determined for resident alveolar and peritoneal macrophages (m theta) from sheep. Cytosolic pH was measured using 2',7'-biscarboxyethyl-5,6-carboxyfluorescein (BCECF). The baseline pHi of both cell types was sensitive to the specific V-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1. Bafilomycin A1 caused a significant (approximately 0.2 pH units) and rapid (within seconds) decline in baseline pHi. Further, bafilomycin A1 slowed the initial rate of pHi recovery (dpHi/dt) from intracellular acid loads. Amiloride had no effects on baseline pHi, but reduced dpHi/dt (acid-loaded pHi nadir < 6.8) by approximately 35%. Recovery of pHi was abolished by co-treatment of m theta with bafilomycin A1 and amiloride. These data indicate that plasma membrane V-ATPase activity is a major determinant of pHi regulation in resident alveolar and peritoneal m theta from sheep. Sheep m theta also appear to possess a Na+/H+ exchanger. However, Na+/H+ exchange either is inactive or can be effectively masked by V-ATPase-mediated H+ extrusion at physiological pHi values.


2005 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato A. Mortara ◽  
Walter K. Andreoli ◽  
Noemi N. Taniwaki ◽  
Adriana B. Fernandes ◽  
Claudio V. da Silva ◽  
...  

Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas’ disease, occurs as different strains or isolates that may be grouped in two major phylogenetic lineages: T. cruzi I, associated with the sylvatic cycle and T. cruzi II, linked to the human disease. In the mammalian host the parasite has to invade cells and many studies implicated the flagellated trypomastigotes in this process. Several parasite surface components and some of host cell receptors with which they interact have been identified. Our work focused on how amastigotes, usually found growing in the cytoplasm, can invade mammalian cells with infectivities comparable to that of trypomastigotes. We found differences in cellular responses induced by amastigotes and trypomastigotes regarding cytoskeletal components and actin-rich projections. Extracellularly generated amastigotes of T. cruzi I strains may display greater infectivity than metacyclic trypomastigotes towards cultured cell lines as well as target cells that have modified expression of different classes of cellular components. Cultured host cells harboring the bacterium Coxiella burnetii allowed us to gain new insights into the trafficking properties of the different infective forms of T. cruzi, disclosing unexpected requirements for the parasite to transit between the parasitophorous vacuole to its final destination in the host cell cytoplasm.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiakang Jin ◽  
Jinti Lin ◽  
Ankai Xu ◽  
Jianan Lou ◽  
Chao Qian ◽  
...  

Tumor microenvironment (TME) formation is a major cause of immunosuppression. The TME consists of a considerable number of macrophages and stromal cells that have been identified in multiple tumor types. CCL2 is the strongest chemoattractant involved in macrophage recruitment and a powerful initiator of inflammation. Evidence indicates that CCL2 can attract other host cells in the TME and direct their differentiation in cooperation with other cytokines. Overall, CCL2 has an unfavorable effect on prognosis in tumor patients because of the accumulation of immunosuppressive cell subtypes. However, there is also evidence demonstrating that CCL2 enhances the anti-tumor capability of specific cell types such as inflammatory monocytes and neutrophils. The inflammation state of the tumor seems to have a bi-lateral role in tumor progression. Here, we review works focusing on the interactions between cancer cells and host cells, and on the biological role of CCL2 in these processes.


2013 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. S105
Author(s):  
Chrislaine Oliveira Soares ◽  
Milton Cesar de Almeida Pereira ◽  
Walter Colli ◽  
Maria Julia Manso Alves

2001 ◽  
Vol 193 (9) ◽  
pp. 1097-1104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabet V. Caler ◽  
Sabyasachi Chakrabarti ◽  
Kimberly T. Fowler ◽  
Swathi Rao ◽  
Norma W. Andrews

The intracellular protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi causes Chagas' disease, which affects millions of people in Latin America. T. cruzi enters a large number of cell types by an unusual mechanism that involves Ca2+-triggered fusion of lysosomes with the plasma membrane. Here we show that synaptotagmin VII (Syt VII), a ubiquitously expressed synaptotagmin isoform that regulates exocytosis of lysosomes, is localized on the membranes of intracellular vacuoles containing T. cruzi. Antibodies against the C2A domain of Syt VII or recombinant peptides including this domain inhibit cell entry by T. cruzi, but not by Toxoplasma gondii or Salmonella typhimurium. The C2A domains of other ubiquitously expressed synaptotagmin isoforms have no effect on T. cruzi invasion, and mutation of critical residues on Syt VII C2A abolish its inhibitory activity. These findings indicate that T. cruzi exploits the Syt VII–dependent, Ca2+-regulated lysosomal exocytic pathway for invading host cells.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e1009152
Author(s):  
Chakir Bello ◽  
Yasmine Smail ◽  
Vincent Sainte-Rose ◽  
Isabelle Podglajen ◽  
Alice Gilbert ◽  
...  

Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcus (PN) is a major causative agent of bacterial meningitis with high mortality in young infants and elderly people worldwide. The mechanism underlying PN crossing of the blood brain barrier (BBB) and specifically, the role of non-endothelial cells of the neurovascular unit that control the BBB function, remains poorly understood. Here, we show that the astroglial connexin 43 (aCx43), a major gap junctional component expressed in astrocytes, plays a predominant role during PN meningitis. Following intravenous PN challenge, mice deficient for aCx43 developed milder symptoms and showed severely reduced bacterial counts in the brain. Immunofluorescence analysis of brain slices indicated that PN induces the aCx43–dependent destruction of the network of glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP), an intermediate filament protein specifically expressed in astrocytes and up-regulated in response to brain injury. PN also induced nuclear shrinkage in astrocytes associated with the loss of BBB integrity, bacterial translocation across endothelial vessels and replication in the brain cortex. We found that aCx4-dependent astrocyte damages could be recapitulated using in vitro cultured cells upon challenge with wild-type PN but not with a ply mutant deficient for the pore-forming toxin pneumolysin (Ply). Consistently, we showed that purified Ply requires Cx43 to promote host cell plasma membrane permeabilization in a process involving the Cx43-dependent release of extracellular ATP and prolonged increase of cytosolic Ca2+ in host cells. These results point to a critical role for astrocytes during PN meningitis and suggest that the cytolytic activity of the major virulence factor Ply at concentrations relevant to bacterial infection requires co-opting of connexin plasma membrane channels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Congshan Yang ◽  
Chenrong Wang ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Qun Liu

Abstract Background Neospora caninum is an obligate intracellular parasite that invades host cells and replicates within the parasitophorous vacuole (PV), which resists fusion with host cell lysosomal compartments. To modify the PV, the parasite secretes an array of proteins, including dense granule proteins (GRAs). The vital role of GRAs in the Neospora life cycle cannot be overestimated. Despite this important role, only a subset of these proteins have been identified, and most of their functions have not been elucidated. Our previous study demonstrated that NcGRA17 is specifically targeted to the delimiting membrane of the parasitophorous vacuole membrane (PVM). In this study, we utilize proximity-dependent biotin identification (BioID) to identify novel components of the dense granules. Methods NcGRA17 was BirA* epitope-tagged in the Nc1 strain utilizing the CRISPR/Cas9 system to create a fusion of NcGRA17 with the biotin ligase BirA*. The biotinylated proteins were affinity-purified for mass spectrometric analysis, and the candidate GRA proteins from BioID data set were identified by gene tagging. To verify the biological role of novel identified GRA proteins, we constructed the NcGRA23 and NcGRA11 (a–e) knockout strains using the CRISPR/Cas9 system and analyzed the phenotypes of these mutants. Results Using NcGRA17-BirA* fusion protein as bait, we have identified some known GRAs and verified localization of 11 novel GRA proteins by gene endogenous tagging or overexpression in the Nc1 strain. We proceeded to functionally characterize NcGRA23 and NcGRA11 (a–e) by gene knockout. The lack of NcGRA23 or NcGRA11 (a–e) did not affect the parasite propagation in vitro and virulence in vivo. Conclusions In summary, our findings reveal that BioID is effective in discovering novel constituents of N. caninum dense granules. The exact biological functions of the novel GRA proteins are yet unknown, but this could be explored in future studies. Graphical abstract


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