TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schuster, Sarah
A1  - Lisack, Jaime
A1  - Subota, Ines
A1  - Zimmermann, Henriette
A1  - Reuter, Christian
A1  - Mueller, Tobias
A1  - Morriswood, Brooke
A1  - Engstler, Markus
T1  - Unexpected plasiticty in the life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei
JF  - eLife
N2  - African trypanosomes cause sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle. These unicellular parasites are transmitted by the bloodsucking tsetse fly. In the mammalian host’s circulation, proliferating slender stage cells differentiate into cell cycle-arrested stumpy stage cells when they reach high population densities. This stage transition is thought to fulfil two main functions: first, it auto-regulates the parasite load in the host; second, the stumpy stage is regarded as the only stage capable of successful vector transmission. Here, we show that proliferating slender stage trypanosomes express the mRNA and protein of a known stumpy stage marker, complete the complex life cycle in the fly as successfully as the stumpy stage, and require only a single parasite for productive infection. These findings suggest a reassessment of the traditional view of the trypanosome life cycle. They may also provide a solution to a long-lasting paradox, namely the successful transmission of parasites in chronic infections, despite low parasitemia.
KW  - trypanosoma
KW  - sleeping sickness
KW  - tsetse fly
KW  - transmission
KW  - life cycle
KW  - development
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-261744
VL  - 10
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reuter, Christian
A1  - Hauf, Laura
A1  - Imdahl, Fabian
A1  - Sen, Rituparno
A1  - Vafadarnejad, Ehsan
A1  - Fey, Philipp
A1  - Finger, Tamara
A1  - Jones, Nicola G.
A1  - Walles, Heike
A1  - Barquist, Lars
A1  - Saliba, Antoine-Emmanuel
A1  - Groeber-Becker, Florian
A1  - Engstler, Markus
T1  - Vector-borne Trypanosoma brucei parasites develop in artificial human skin and persist as skin tissue forms
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Transmission of Trypanosoma brucei by tsetse flies involves the deposition of the cell cycle-arrested metacyclic life cycle stage into mammalian skin at the site of the fly’s bite. We introduce an advanced human skin equivalent and use tsetse flies to naturally infect the skin with trypanosomes. We detail the chronological order of the parasites’ development in the skin by single-cell RNA sequencing and find a rapid activation of metacyclic trypanosomes and differentiation to proliferative parasites. Here we show that after the establishment of a proliferative population, the parasites enter a reversible quiescent state characterized by slow replication and a strongly reduced metabolism. We term these quiescent trypanosomes skin tissue forms, a parasite population that may play an important role in maintaining the infection over long time periods and in asymptomatic infected individuals.
KW  - mechanisms of disease
KW  - parasitology
KW  - transcriptomics
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-358142
VL  - 14
ER  -