Seven individuals living in a town in the Southwest of Bahia developed sudden signs of cardiac and systemic impairment, with lethality of 28.6%. Serological tests were positive at least in one test in the five patients examined. Forty percent of the Triatoma sordida mynphs found inside or around Trypanosoma cruzi were found by blood culturig in there out five cases the homes of these cases were...

As part of our efforts aimed at searching for new antiparasitic agents, the effect of representative 2-alkylaminoethyl-1,1-bisphosphonic acids on Trypanosoma cruzi squalene synthase (TcSQS) was investigated. These compounds had proven to be potent inhibitors of T. cruzi. This cellular activity had been associated with an inhibition of the enzymatic activity of T. cruzi farnesyl diphosphate synt...

A simple method was developed for the characterization of different strains of Trypanosoma cruzi. T. cruzi stocks isolated from vectors or by hemoculture from patients with Chagas disease could be grouped in subpopulations having similar patterns of restriction endonuclease products of kinetoplast DNA minicircles. We designate such subpopulations by the term "schizodemes." Furthermore, it is sh...

The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis), a neglected disease of Central and South America. Polyamines are small organic cations that are required for cell growth and their biosynthesis has been the target of drug discovery efforts in both T. cruzi and the related Trypanosoma brucei parasites. Here we show that, as previously d...

In this study, we evaluate mixed discrete typing units (DTUs) of Trypanosoma cruzi present in 69 patients of Chagas disease and 92 Triatoma infestans collected under the entomological surveillance program after more than 20 years of intervention with insecticide spraying in Chile. Our aim is to identify T. cruzi DTUs still circulating in T. infestans and chronic patients to evaluate their impac...

Little is known on the role played by Neotropical wild carnivores in the Trypanosoma cruzi transmission cycles. We investigated T. cruzi infection in wild carnivores from three sites in Brazil through parasitological and serological tests. The seven carnivore species examined were infected by T. cruzi, but high parasitemias detectable by hemoculture were found only in two Procyonidae species. G...

The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panamá C...

Among the different infective stages that Trypanosoma cruzi employs to invade cells, extracellular amastigotes (EAs) have recently gained attention by our group. This is true primarily because these amastigotes are able to infect cultured cells and animals, establishing a sustainable infective cycle. EAs are thus an excellent means of adaptation and survival for T. cruzi, whose different infect...

The aim of this work was to identify and report the occurrence of Trypanosoma rangeli and Trypanosoma cruzi in naturally infected Rhodnius nasutus (Hemiptera, Reduviidae, Triatominae) in the state of Ceará, Brazil. Triatomines feces, salivary glands, and hemolymph were collected for fresh examination, and specific detection of T. rangeli and T. cruzi DNA by polymerase chain reaction was carried...

Chagas disease, caused by the unicellular parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, claims 50,000 lives annually and is the leading cause of infectious myocarditis in the world. As current antichagastic therapies like nifurtimox and benznidazole are highly toxic, ineffective at parasite eradication, and subject to increasing resistance, novel therapeutics are urgently needed. Cruzain, the major cysteine prot...