During anaerobic glycolysis in vitro in the presence of salicylhydroxamic acid, Trypanosoma brucei brucei converts glucose to equimolar amounts of glycerol and pyruvate as end products. Glycerol, whether generated endogenously and pyruvate as end products. Glycerol, whether generated endogenously or added exogenously, can inhibit anaerobic glycolysis sufficiently in vitro to result in cell deat...

Kinetoplastids cause Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis, and leishmaniases. Current treatments for these diseases are toxic and inefficient, and our limited knowledge of drug targets and inhibitors has dramatically hindered the development of new drugs. Here we used a chemogenetic approach to identify new kinetoplastid drug targets and inhibitors. We conditionally knocked down Trypan...

In the search for new therapeutic tools against neglected diseases produced by trypanosomatid parasites, and particularly against African Trypanosomiasis, whose etiological agent is Trypanosoma brucei, organoruthenium compounds with bioactive nitrofuran containing thiosemicarbazones (L) as co-ligands were obtained. Four ruthenium(II) complexes with the formula [Ru(2)(p-cymene)(2)(L)(2)]X(2), wh...

Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei are parasites that cause Chagas' disease and African sleeping sickness, respectively. Both parasites rely on essential cysteine proteases for survival: cruzain for T. cruzi and TbCatB/rhodesain for T. brucei. A recent quantitative high-throughput screen of cruzain identified triazine nitriles, which are known inhibitors of other cysteine proteases, as re...

BACKGROUND Trypanosoma brucei brucei infects livestock, with severe effects in horses and dogs. Mouse strains differ greatly in susceptibility to this parasite. However, no genes controlling these differences were mapped. METHODS We studied the genetic control of survival after T. b. brucei infection using recombinant congenic (RC) strains, which have a high mapping power. Each RC strain of B...