Transcriptomic analysis of the adaptation to prolonged starvation of the insect-dwelling Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes

Trypanosoma cruzi is a digenetic unicellular parasite that alternates between a blood-sucking insect and a mammalian host causing Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis. In the insect gut, the non-replicative trypomastigote forms that arrive with blood ingestion differentiate into the non-infective replicative epimastigote forms. Epimastigotes develop into the infective non-replicative metacyclic trypomastigotes at the rectum and are delivered with feces. In addition to these parasite stages, transitional forms have been reported. The insect feeding behavior, characterized by few meals of large blood amounts followed by long periods of starvation, impacts the parasite population density but also differentiation, increasing the transitional forms and diminishing both epimastigotes and metacyclic trypomastigotes. To understand the molecular changes caused by nutritional restrictions in the insect host, the transcriptome of axenic epimastigotes were cultured for prolonged time without further nutrient supplementation was analyzed.