Classification

Kingdom: Excavata/Eukaryota
Phylum: Euglenozoa
Class: Kinetoplastea
Order: Trypanosomatida
Genus: Trypanosoma
Species: T. brucei1

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 Trypansoma brucei.
1. Characteristics.
2. Diagnosis/Public Health.
3. Treatment, Prognosis.
4. Research.

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 Characteristics.
1. Motility/NK cells.

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 Characteristics.

2. Changing VSG Coats/Antibodies.

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 Diagnosis and Public Health Concerns:
1. Card agglutination trypanosomosis test. Or, Kova slides of CSF.
2. Parasitemia levels in blood.
70,000 persons each year will contract Trypanosomasia, according to the World
Health Organization.

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 Treatment & Prognosis.
The current treatment for T. brucei caused sleeping sickness is the medicine
Eflornithine. It is a selectively toxic protein synthesis inhibitor. It binds to the
active site of the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase.

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The problem with eflornithine treatment is that it is delivered
intravenously. It requires in-patient care, as the schedule is a
slow drip IV, once every 6 hours, for a period of 14 days. Dosage
must be calibrated to each patient, and monitored, to avoid
toxemia. It is effective, but considered an intermediate step to
other medical solutions.

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 Research.
1. T. brucei is easy to cultivate in the lab (broth recipe below.)
2. Recent in vitro RNAi silencing experiments are adding detail to the
coat changing story.

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In one recent study, Aitcheson et. al, 2005, transfected RNAi into T. Brucei to attempt
generating many instances of coat change data.

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12 Experiments attempting RNAi silencing were completed. Each experiment had 96
wells of RNAi transfected T. brucie. Anitbiotic resistant markers were used to find the
RNAi tranfected cells. Electrophoresis was used to identify a variety of different VSG coats
show below. At first glance, it seems a new coat expression site was selected at random.

Intro CH.

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Is there a pattern of VSG coat expression
that may suggest possible vaccine
strategies? The Aitcheson data suggest
further study of coat change patterns.

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1
Wikipedia contributors. "Trypanosoma brucei." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.
2
http://tryps.rockefeller.edu/trypsru2_culture_media_preparation.html
3 Aitcheson, N., Talbot, S., Shapiro, J., Hughes, K., Adkin, C., Butt, T., Sheader, K., Rudenko, G., VSG switching in Trypanosoma brucei: antigenic variation analyzed using RNAi in the absence of immune

selection Mol. Microbiol. 2005 September; 57(6): 1608-1622