Proteomic Analysis of Trypanosoma cruzi Spliceosome Complex

The unicellular protists of the group Kinetoplastea include the genera Leishmania and Trypanosoma, which are pathogens of invertebrate and vertebrate animals. Despite their medical and economical importance, critical aspects of their biology such as specific molecular characteristics of gene expression regulation are just beginning to be deciphered. Gene expression regulation mainly depends on post-transcriptional processing, such as the trans-splicing process. Despite being widely used in Trypanosomes, trans-splicing is a rare event in other eukaryotes. We sought to describe the protein composition of spliceosomes in epimastigotes of T. cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease