Isolation and analysis of the genetic diversity of repertoires of VSG expression site containing telomeres from Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, T. b. brucei and T. equiperdum.

ABSTRACT:

Background

African trypanosomes (including Trypanosoma brucei) are unicellular parasites which multiply in the mammalian bloodstream. T. brucei has about twenty telomeric bloodstream form Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG) expression sites (BESs), of which one is expressed at a time in a mutually exclusive fashion. BESs are polycistronic transcription units, containing a variety of families of expression site associated genes (ESAGs) in addition to the telomeric VSG. These polymorphic ESAG families are thought to play a role in parasite-host adaptation, and it has been proposed that ESAG diversity might be related to host range. Analysis of the genetic diversity of these telomeric gene families has been confounded by the underrepresentation of telomeric sequences in standard librar

SUBMITTER: Young R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2533676 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature