Trypanosoma cruzi acute infections often go unperceived, but one third of chronically infected individuals die of Chagas disease, showing diverse manifestations affecting the heart, intestines, and nervous systems. A common denominator of pathology in Chagas disease is the minimal rejection unit, whereby parasite-free target host cells are destroyed by immune system mononuclear effectors cells ...

The kinetoplast is a concatenated network of circular DNA molecules found in the mitochondrion of many trypanosomes. This mass of DNA is replicated in a discrete "S" phase in the cell cycle. We have tracked the incorporation of the thymidine analogue 5-bromodeoxyuridine into newly replicated DNA by immunofluorescence and novel immunogold labeling procedures. This has allowed the detection of pa...

Like other eukaryotes, trypanosomes have an essential type II fatty acid synthase in their mitochondrion. We have investigated the function of this synthase in bloodstream-form parasites by studying the effect of a conditional knockout of acyl carrier protein (ACP), a key player in this fatty acid synthase pathway. We found that ACP depletion not only caused small changes in cellular phospholip...

The mitochondrial genome of Trypanosoma brucei is contained in a specialized structure termed the kinetoplast. Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) is organized into a concatenated network of mini and maxicircles, positioned at the base of the flagellum, to which it is physically attached. Here we have used electron microscope cytochemistry to determine structural and functional domains involved in replicati...

Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA), a unique mitochondrial structure common to trypanosomatid parasites, contains thousands of DNA minicircles that are densely packed and can be topologically linked into a chain mail-like network. Experimental data indicate that every minicircle in the network is, on average, singly linked to three other minicircles (i.e., has mean valence 3) before replication and to six ...

Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) was isolated from 56 stocks of Trypanosoma cruzi isolated from human patients, animals and insects from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Costa Rica. Comparison of the patterns of digested kDNA on acrylamide gels led to the grouping of several stocks into two schizodemes. Schizodeme analysis was also performed using a set of 330-bp fragments representing all the variable re...

The mitochondrial DNA of Trypanosoma brucei, termed kinetoplast DNA or kDNA, consists of thousands of minicircles and a small number of maxicircles catenated into a single network organized as a nucleoprotein disk at the base of the flagellum. Minicircles are replicated free of the network but still contain nicks and gaps after rejoining to the network. Covalent closure of remaining discontinui...

In trypanosomatids, the kinetoplast is the portion of the single mitochondrion that is connected to the basal body and contains the kDNA, a network composed by circular and interlocked DNA. The kDNA packing is conducted by Kinetoplast Associated Proteins (KAPs), which are similar to eukaryotic histone H1. In symbiont-harboring trypanosomatids (SHTs) such as Angomonas deanei and Strigomonas culi...

The mitochondrial DNA in kinetoplastid protozoa is contained in a single highly condensed structure consisting of thousands of minicircles and approximately 25 maxicircles. The disk-shaped structure is termed kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) and is located in the mitochondrial matrix near the basal body. We have previously identified a mitochondrial DNA ligase (LIG kbeta) in the trypanosomatid Crithidia ...