RESEARCH ARTICLE


Endocytosis in Trypanosoma cruzi



Narcisa Leal Cunha-e-Silva*, 1, Celso Sant’Anna2, Miria G. Pereira 1, Wanderley de Souza1, 2
1 Laboratório de Ultraestrutura Celular Hertha Meyer, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Fede-ral do Rio de Janeiro, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373, bloco G subsolo, Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, 21941- 902, Brazil
2 Diretoria de Programas, Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial-INMETRO, Av. Nossa Senhora das Graças, 50, Xerém, Duque de Caxias – Rio de Janeiro, 25250-020, Brazil

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 4
First Page: 84
Last Page: 97
Publisher ID: TOPARAJ-4-98
DOI: 10.2174/1874421401004010098

Article History:

Received Date: 15/11/2009
Revision Received Date: 5/5/2010
Acceptance Date: 5/5/2010
Electronic publication date: 10/12/2010
Collection year: 2010

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Creative Commons License
© 2010 Cunha-e-Silvaet al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Correspondence: * Address correspondence to this author at the Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373, bloco G subsolo, Cidade Universitária, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de, Janeiro, 21941-902, Brasil; Tel/Fax: 55-21-2562-6593; E-mail: narcisa@biof.ufrj.br


Abstract

Endocytic activity is particularly intense in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes, while in amastigotes and trypomastigotes it is untraceable. Cargo molecules enters through the cytostome or flagellar pocket at the parasite anterior region, goes along a branched early endosomal network of tubules and vesicles spread from nuclear periphery to the posterior pole, until delivery to reservosomes, the final compartment. Reservosomes are acid compartments that store protein and lipid cargo and also accumulate lysosomal hydrolases, modulating digestive activity. Although T. cruzi infective forms are unable to uptake molecules, its lysosome related organelles represent a potential targets for anti-parasitic chemotherapy.

Keywords: Endocytosis, Trypanosoma cruzi, Reservosome, Cytostome.