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Proteome analysis of the causative agent of Chagas disease: Trypanosoma cruzi

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2004.05.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, has evolved particular mechanisms of gene regulation. Gene expression is regulated firstly at post-transcriptional level. This feature makes proteomic methods a promising tool for studying adaptative changes in these parasites. In this work we generated a reproducible method for protein analysis by two-dimensional electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry, and a protein map for T. cruzi. Western-blot analysis supported the identity of some of the proteins. This work points to proteomic approach as a powerful tool to study differential expression, stress response or drug resistance in T. cruzi.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs Samuel Goldenberg and Marco Krieger (Instituto de Biologia Molecular do Parana, Brazil) for Dm28c clone, and Magdalena Portela for technical assistance. This work was supported by CSIC-Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay), the AMSUD-Pasteur Program and ECOS-SUD Program (Uruguay-France).

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