BACKGROUND Infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi manifests in mammals as Chagas heart disease. The treatment available for chagasic cardiomyopathy is unsatisfactory. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To study the disease pathology and its inhibition, we employed a syngeneic chicken model refractory to T. cruzi in which chickens hatched from T. cruzi inoculated eggs retained parasite kDNA (1...

Here we define a new approach for the detection and characterisation of Leishmania complexes by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and specific hybridisation. The first step consists of PCR amplification of kDNA minicircles using general kinetoplastid primers, which generate a polymorphic multi-banding pattern for all Leishmania species and other Kinetoplastidae. The second step is the identificat...

In visceral leishmaniasis, the detection of the agent is of paramount importance to identify reservoirs of infection. Here, we evaluated the diagnostic attributes of PCRs based on primers directed to cytochrome-B (cytB), cytochrome-oxidase-subunit II (coxII), cytochrome-C (cytC), and the minicircle-kDNA. Although PCRs directed to cytB, coxII, cytC were able to detect different species of Leishm...

T rypanosomatids are protozoan parasites responsible for important tropical diseases. One example, Trypanosoma brucei, causes African sleeping sickness, and related parasites cause Chagas disease and leishmaniasis. Because they are among the earliest-branching eukaryotes, trypanosomatids have unusual biological properties. One of their most curious features is a unique mitochondrial DNA network...

African trypanosomes have a remarkable mitochondrial DNA termed kDNA (kinetoplast DNA) that contains several thousands of topologically interlocked DNA rings. Because of its highly unusual structure, kDNA has a complex replication mechanism. Our approach to understanding this mechanism is to identify the proteins involved and to characterize their function. So far approx. 30 candidate proteins ...

Abstract The present study aimed to evaluate a methodology for active surveillance of visceral leishmaniasis by detecting Leishmania DNA in organs wild road-killed animals from November 2016 October 2018 the North Paraná, Brazil. collection points were georeferenced. autopsied and samples bone marrow, lymph node, liver, spleen, ear skin collected. Genomic was extracted subjected PCR amplificati...

Kinetoplastid protozoa such as trypanosomes and Leishmania are important because they cause human disease. These parasites are named after one of their most unusual features, a mitochondrial DNA known as kinetoplast DNA (kDNA). Unlike all other DNA in nature, kDNA comprises a giant network of interlocked DNA rings with a topology resembling that of medieval chain mail. The replication of the kD...

A fully kinetoplastic strain of an antigenic variant of Trypanosoma equiperdum has been made dyskinetoplastic by successive treatments of infected rats with ethidium bromide or acriflavine. After seven passages in the absence of the dye, the loss of kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) is stable and complete as shown by analytical ultracentrifugation, CsCl-dye gradients, and the reassociation kinetics of in ...

BACKGROUND The PCR assays usually employed for Leishmania diagnosis does not simultaneously detect a constitutive gene that would certify the viability of the DNA sample. We present a multiplex PCR approach for the simultaneous diagnosis of the Leishmania sp. kDNA fragment and a catalytic domain segment of a conserved region of the mammalian gapdh gene. METHODOLOGY The proposed multiplex prot...

Acute Trypanosoma cruzi infections can be asymptomatic, but chronically infected individuals can die of Chagas' disease. The transfer of the parasite mitochondrial kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) minicircle to the genome of chagasic patients can explain the pathogenesis of the disease; in cases of Chagas' disease with evident cardiomyopathy, the kDNA minicircles integrate mainly into retrotransposons at...