Developmental regulation and extracellular release of a VSG expression-site-associated gene product from Trypanosoma brucei bloodstream forms.

ABSTRACT: Trypanosomes evade host immunity by exchanging variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coats. VSG genes are transcribed from telomeric expression sites, which contain a diverse family of expression-site-associated genes (ESAGs). We have discovered that the mRNAs for one ESAG family, ESAG9, are strongly developmentally regulated, being enriched in stumpy forms, a life-cycle stage in the mammalian bloodstream that is important for the maintenance of chronic parasite infections and for tsetse transmission. ESAG9 gene sequences are highly diverse in the genome and encode proteins with weak similarity to the massively diverse MASP proteins in Trypanosoma cruzi. We demonstrate that ESAG9 proteins are modified by N-glycosylation and can be shed to the external milieu, this being dependent upon coexpre

SUBMITTER: Barnwell EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2939805 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature