Recombination-driven generation of the largest pathogen repository of antigen variants in the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, causative agent of Chagas disease, depends upon a cell surface-expressed trans-sialidase (ts) to avoid activation of complement-mediated lysis and to enhance intracellular invasion. However these functions alone fail to account for the size of this gene family in T. cruzi, especially considering that most of these genes encode proteins lacking ts enzyme activity. Previous whole genome sequencing of the CL Brener clone of T. cruzi identified ~1400 ts variants, but left many partially assembled sequences unannotated.

Results

In the current study we reevaluated the trans-sialidase-like sequences in this reference strain, identifying an additional 1779 full-length and partial ts genes with their important features annotated, a

SUBMITTER: Weatherly DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5020489 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature