1. Trypanosoma brucei Parasites Occupy and Functionally Adapt to the Adipose Tissue in Mice.
- Author
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Trindade, Sandra, Rijo-Ferreira, Filipa, Carvalho, Tânia, Pinto-Neves, Daniel, Guegan, Fabien, Aresta-Branco, Francisco, Bento, Fabio, Young, Simon A., Pinto, Andreia, Van Den Abbeele, Jan, Ribeiro, Ruy M., Dias, Sérgio, Smith, Terry K., and Figueiredo, Luisa M.
- Abstract
Summary Trypanosoma brucei is an extracellular parasite that causes sleeping sickness. In mammalian hosts, trypanosomes are thought to exist in two major niches: early in infection, they populate the blood; later, they breach the blood-brain barrier. Working with a well-established mouse model, we discovered that adipose tissue constitutes a third major reservoir for T. brucei . Parasites from adipose tissue, here termed adipose tissue forms (ATFs), can replicate and were capable of infecting a naive animal. ATFs were transcriptionally distinct from bloodstream forms, and the genes upregulated included putative fatty acid β-oxidation enzymes. Consistent with this, ATFs were able to utilize exogenous myristate and form β-oxidation intermediates, suggesting that ATF parasites can use fatty acids as an external carbon source. These findings identify the adipose tissue as a niche for T. brucei during its mammalian life cycle and could potentially explain the weight loss associated with sleeping sickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
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