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Human Serum Lyses Trypanosoma brucei by Triggering Uncontrolled Swelling of the Parasite Lysosome
Author(s) -
VANHOLLEBEKE BENOIT,
LECORDIER LAURENCE,
PEREZMORGA DAVID,
AMIGUETVERCHER AMELIA,
PAYS ETIENNE
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2007.00285.x
Subject(s) - trypanosoma brucei , lysosome , lysis , vacuole , biology , organelle , microbiology and biotechnology , parasite hosting , swelling , cytoplasm , biochemistry , pathology , medicine , world wide web , gene , computer science , enzyme
.Trypanosoma brucei brucei infects a wide range of mammals, but is unable to infect humans because this subspecies is lysed by normal human serum (NHS). The phenotype of cellular lysis is debated. For some authors the lysosome undergoes osmotic swelling due to massive influx of chloride ions from the cytoplasmic compartment, but others describe multiple small cytoplasmic vacuoles and general swelling of the cellular body. Using population‐level imaging of live immobilized trypanosomes throughout the lysis process, we report that specific swelling of the lysosome is a genuine and major characteristic of NHS‐mediated lysis and that this phenotype is independent of the strain of trypanosomes and of NHS aging or damaging. Thus, irrespective of experimental conditions NHS reproducibly induced the swelling of the parasite lysosome.