The first description of African trypanosomes was made over a century ago. The importance of the tsetse in transmission and cyclic development of trypanosomes was discovered soon afterwards, and has been the focus of numerous studies since. However, investigation of trypanosomes in tsetse flies requires high resource investment and unusual patience; hence, many facets of trypanosome biology in ...

The power of network-based drug design and the interplay between metabolism and gene expression in Trypanosoma brucei

In this paper, we describe the range of N-linked glycan structures produced by wild-type and glucosidase II null mutant bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei parasites and the creation and characterization of a bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei UDP-glucose:glycoprotein glucosyltransferase null mutant. These analyses highlight peculiarities of the Trypanosoma brucei UDP-glucose:glycoprotein gluc...

Aquaglyceroporin-2 is a known determinant of melarsoprol-pentamidine cross-resistance in Trypanosoma brucei brucei laboratory strains. Recently, chimerization at the AQP2-AQP3 tandem locus was described from melarsoprol-pentamidine cross-resistant Trypanosoma brucei gambiense isolates from sleeping sickness patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, we demonstrate that reintroducti...

Trypanosomoses are protozoan diseases, affecting both human and animals, and mainly found in tropical Africa, Latin America and Asia. In Africa, trypanosomes produce serious diseases in human beings such as West and East Sleeping Sickness caused by T. brucei gambiense and T. brucei congolense respectively, while in the Americas T. cruzi causes the Chagas disease. Other species of Trypanosoma af...

Plasmodium falciparum Amebae (Intestinal) Babesia species Entamoeba histolytica Flagellates (Leishmaniae, Trypanosomes) Entamoeba dispar* Leishmania tropica complex Entamoeba hartmanni Leishmania mexicana complex Entamoeba coli Leishmania braziliensis complex Entamoeba polecki Leishmania donovani complex Endolimax nana Leishmania peruviana Iodamoeba bütschlii Trypanosoma brucei gambiense Blasto...

A screen of a focused kinase inhibitor library against Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense led to the identification of seven series, totaling 121 compounds, which showed >50 % inhibition at 5 μm. Screening of these hits in a T. b. brucei proliferation assay highlighted three compounds with a 1H-imidazo[4,5-b]pyrazin-2(3H)-one scaffold that showed sub-micromolar activity and excellent selectivity ag...

A Canadian man came to the hospital with history of daily fever in the afternoon, for five days, ranging from 38.5oC to 39oC, headache, muscle pain and asthenia. He is a photographer enthusiastic about wild life and had been to Zimbabwe for 14 days, where he filmed groups of lions and animals of the African megafauna. Upon examination, he presented a hyperemic skin lesion in the posterior regio...