Tissue tropism in parasitic diseases

Abstract

Parasitic diseases, such as sleeping sickness, Chagas disease and malaria, remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, but particularly in tropical, developing countries. Controlling these diseases requires a better understanding of host–parasite interactions, including a deep appreciation of parasite distribution in the host. The preferred accumulation of parasites in some tissues of the host has been known for many years, but recent technical advances have allowed a more systematic analysis and quantifications of such tissue tropisms. The functional consequences of tissue tropism remain poorly studied, although it has been associated with important aspects of disease, including transmission enhancement, treatment failure, relapse and clinical outcome. Here, we discuss current knowledge of tissue tropism in Trypanosoma infections in mammals, describe potential mechanisms of tissue entry, comparatively discuss relevant findings from other parasitology fields where tissue tropism has been extensively investigated, and reflect on new questions raised by recent discoveries and their potential impact on clinical treatment and disease control strategies.

Identifying Cattle Breed-Specific Partner Choice of Transcription Factors during the African Trypanosomiasis Disease Progression Using Bioinformatics Analysis

“…After T. congolense infection, cerebral lesions and enlargement of several organs in particular liver, spleen, lungs, heart, and lymph nodes, are observed during the pathogenesis of the disease [97,98]. This could be an indication that the infected cattle are attempting to remove the parasites from the body via chronic inflammation.…”

Motility patterns of Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigotes correlate with the efficiency of parasite invasion in vitro

“…T. cruzi is able to infect a wide variety of nonprofessional phagocytic cells 18 , both in vitro 2,[35][36][37][38] and in vivo [39][40][41][42] . Although in the vertebrate host, the parasite can invade somatic cells in a wide range of tissues 43 , disease www.nature.com/scientificreports/ pathology occurs mostly in the heart and the digestive system.…”

Sleeping Sickness: A Tale of Two Clocks

“…Mammalian infection starts with a bite from an infected tsetse that inoculates cell-cycle arrested (metacyclic stage) parasites into the mammalian bloodstream and lymphatic system. These infective cells sense their new host environment and differentiate into bloodstream-form parasites that can actively replicate (slender forms) and infiltrate the interstitial spaces of several organs, including adipose tissue, skin, testes, brain, and heart (Caljon et al, 2016 ; Capewell et al, 2016 ; Trindade et al, 2016 ; Carvalho et al, 2018 ; Silva Pereira et al, 2019 ). There is a second bloodstream form (stumpy form) that arises from the differentiation of the slender forms and becomes cell-cycle arrested.…”