Epimastigote and trypomastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi attach to the macrophage surface and are internalized with the formation of a membrane bounded vacuole, known as the parasitophorous vacuole (PV). In order to determine if components of the host cell membrane are internalized during formation of the PV we labeled the macrophage surface with fluorescent probes for proteins, lipids and si...

Sera of Chaga 's disease patients containing anti-T. cruzi lytic antibodies were submitted to affinity chromatography using Sepharose 4B conjugated with antigen extracted from epimastigote or trypomastigote forms of the parasite. Epimastigotes were obtained from culture at the exponential growth phase and the trypomastigotes from blood of infected and immunosuppressed mice. Antigen of both para...

With the aim of finding new chemical entities based on coumarin and chalcone scaffolds, new hybrid compounds 2-5 were designed and synthesized. The trypanocidal activity of these compounds was tested against the epimastigote, trypomastigote and amastigote stages of the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite. Cytotoxicity assays were also performed in RAW 264.7 and VERO cells. Compound 5 presented the highe...

Cells die through a programmed process or accidental death, know as apoptosis or necrosis, respectively. Bothrops jararaca is a snake whose venom inhibits the growth of Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote forms causing mitochondrion swelling and cell death. The aim of the present work was to determine the type of death induced in epimastigotes of T. cruzi by this venom. Parasite growth was inhibited...

The stem barks of Pera benensis are employed by the Chimane Indians in the Bolivian Amazonia as treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by the protozoan Leishmania braziliensis. The chloroform extracts containing quinones were found active against the promastigote forms of Leishmania and the epimastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi at 10 micrograms ml-1. The activity guided fractionation of ...

The hemoflagellate Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of American trypanosomiasis. Despite the importance of motility in the parasite life cycle, little is known about T. cruzi motility, and there is no quantitative description of its flagellar beating. Using video microscopy and quantitative vectorial analysis of epimastigote trajectories, we find a forward parasite motility defined by t...

Four-day-old epimastigote culture forms of Trypanosoma cruzi, Trypanosoma rangeli and Trypanosoma conorhini were tested with 21 lectins. Furthermore T. conorhini was incubated with the following sera: rat, Wistar HAN, germ free; normal fresh hen, rat and human serum. T. rangeli was agglutinated only by the D-mannose specific lectins from Canavalia ensiformis and Pisum sativum. T. cruzi and T. c...