Egress is a crucial phase of the Toxoplasma gondii intracellular lytic cycle. This is a process that drives inflammation and is strongly associated with the pathogenesis observed during toxoplasmosis. Despite the link between this process and virulence, little is known about egress on a mechanistic or descriptive level. Previously published work has suggested that a phospholipase, lecithin-chol...

The tachyzoite-induced cycle of Toxoplasma gondii was studied in 46 cats. Tachyzoites of the M-7741 or Me-49 strain of T. gondii were administered orally to cats by pouring into the mouth or by stomach tube, or by intraintestinal inoculation. Ten weaned cats that had been inoculated with tachyzoites directly in the intestine were killed 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, or 25 days later, and their tissue...

Tachyzoite forms of Toxoplasma gondii were subjected to a sequential organic solvent extraction, which allows fractionation of membrane components according to their degrees of hydrophobicity, yielding three fractions named F1 (most hydrophobic) to F3 (least hydrophobic). Fractions F2 (80.85% specificity and 86.95% sensitivity) and F3 (89.36% specificity and 93.61% sensitivity) gave the best re...

Tachyzoite clones obtained from a single Toxoplasma gondii oocyst field sample were genotyped and characterized regarding mouse virulence. PCR-RFLP genotyping of tachyzoites initially isolated from interferon-γ-knockout (GKO) mice, BALB/c mice and VERO cell culture using the nine independent, unlinked genetic markers nSAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, c22-8, c29-2, L358, PK1 and Apico revealed mixed T. g...

Mitochondria distribution in cells controls cellular physiology in health and disease. Here we describe the mitochondrial morphology and positioning found in the different stages of the lytic cycle of the eukaryotic single-cell parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The lytic cycle, driven by the tachyzoite life stage, is responsible for acute toxoplasmosis. It is known that whilst inside a host cell the ...

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite of the phylum Apicomplexa. The interaction of two well-studied proteins, Apical Membrane Antigen 1 (AMA1) and Rhoptry Neck protein 2 (RON2), has been shown to be critical for invasion by the asexual tachyzoite stage. Recently, two paralogues of these proteins, dubbed sporoAMA1 and sporoRON2 (or RON2L2), respectively, have been identified b...