Trypanosoma cruzi, the flagellate protozoan agent of Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis, is unable to synthesize sialic acids de novo. Mucins and trans-sialidase (TS) are substrate and enzyme, respectively, of the glycobiological system that scavenges sialic acid from the host in a crucial interplay for T. cruzi life cycle. The acquisition of the sialyl residue allows the parasite to avoid lysis by serum factors and to interact with the host cell. A major drawback to studying the sialylation kinetics and turnover of the trypomastigote glycoconjugates is the difficulty to identify and follow the recently acquired sialyl residues. To tackle this issue, we followed an unnatural sugar approach as bioorthogonal chemical reporters, where the use of azidosialyl residues allowed identifying the acquired sugar. Advanced microscopy techniques, together with biochemical methods, were used to study the trypomastigote membrane from its glycobiological perspective. Main sialyl acceptors were identified as mucins by biochemical procedures and protein markers. Together with determining their shedding and turnover rates, we also report that several membrane proteins, including TS and its substrates, both glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins, are separately distributed on parasite surface and contained in different and highly stable membrane microdomains. Notably, labeling for α(1,3)Galactosyl residues only partially colocalize with sialylated mucins, indicating that two species of glycosylated mucins do exist, which are segregated at the parasite surface. Moreover, sialylated mucins were included in lipid-raft-domains, whereas TS molecules are not. The location of the surface-anchored TS resulted too far off as to be capable to sialylate mucins, a role played by the shed TS instead. Phosphatidylinositol-phospholipase-C activity is actually not present in trypomastigotes. Therefore, shedding of TS occurs via microvesicles instead of as a fully soluble form.

A coumarin fluorophore and an oxazine photochrome can be integrated within the same molecular skeleton and connected covalently to a secondary antibody. Illumination of the antibody−dyad conjugate at an appropriate activation wavelength opens the oxazine ring reversibly and shifts bathochromically the ground-state absorption of the coumarin component. Selective excitation of the photochemical product then produces significant fluorescence and allows the detection of activated bioconjugates at the single-molecule level. Such fluorescence activation events can be exploited to resolve temporally individual emitters and reconstruct images of immunolabeled cells with subdiffraction resolution. Relying on a similar conjugation protocol, a model compound, incorporating the same chromophore of the photochemical product, can also be connected covalently to a secondary antibody. Stimulated emission can be exploited to deplete the excited state of the bioconjugated chromophores and switch their fluorescence off. These operating principles for fluorescence switching also permit the imaging of immunolabeled cells with subdiffraction resolution. Thus, these photoswitchable molecules, in combination with the labeling ability of antibodies, can evolve into valuable probes for bioimaging with superresolution.

Single-molecule (SM) fluorescence microscopy was used to investigate the photochromic fluorescent system spiropyran-merocyanine (SP ↔ MC) interacting with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). We observe a significant increase in the brightness of the emissive MC form, in the duration of its ON time, and in the total number of emitted photons. The spatial distribution of SMs with improved photophysical performance was obtained with 40 nm precision relative to the nearest AuNP. We demonstrate that even photochromic systems with poor photochemical performance for SM can become suitable for long time monitoring and high performance microscopy by interaction with metallic NP.