Studies On The Expression Of Ep Procyclin Like Gene In Cultured Trypanosoma Congolense

Trypanosama brucei is known to express EP procyclins in the Tsetse fly midgut. These proteins protect the parasite from digestive enzymes in the fly‘s mid-gut and are not known to be expressed in the blood stream forms of Trypanosomes. T. congolense was obtained from the blood of an infected laboratory mouse. Trypanosomes were adapted to culture conditions in RPMI 1640 culture medium supplemented with FBS, glucose, β-Mercaptoethanol and cysteine. The parasites were monitored at 6, 12, 24 and 48hours respectively and we observed that the in vitro culture conditions supported the survival of T. congolense and the parasites retained their animal infectivity potential after 48 hours of culture. Gene expression level of the cultured parasites was assayed, to determine the presence of EP-procyclin in the parasites. Primers designed from the conserved regions of T. brucei EP-procyclin gene to identify the EP-procyclin gene in blood stream form of T. congolense. EP-procyclin gene expression was monitored at 0, 24 and 48 hours of T. congolense culture. The results reveal that cultured blood stream form of T. congolense expressed EP-procyclin-like gene and that the optimum time to maintain a culture of bloodstream forms of T. congolense is between 12 and 24 hours

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism