Trypanosoma cruzi I and IV Stocks from Brazilian Amazon Are Divergent in Terms of Biological and Medical Properties in Mice

BackgroundIn the Brazilian Amazon, clinical and epidemiological frameworks of Chagas disease are very dissimilar in relation to the endemic classical areas of transmission, possibly due to genetic and biological characteristics of the circulating Trypanosoma cruzi stocks. Twenty six T. cruzi stocks from Western Amazon Region attributed to the TcI and TcIV DTUs were comparatively studied in Swiss mice to test the hypothesis that T. cruzi clonal structure has a major impact on its biological and medical properties. Methodology/Principal FindingsSeventeen parameters were assayed in mice infected with 14 T. cruzi strains belonging to DTU TcI and 11 strains typed as TcIV. In comparison with TcI, TcIV stocks promoted a significantly shorter pre-patent period (p Conclusion/SignificanceT. cruzi stocks belonging to TcI and TcIV DTUs from Brazilian Amazon are divergent in terms of biological and medical properties in mice.

研究背景：在巴西亚马逊地区，恰加斯病（Chagas disease）的临床与流行病学特征与经典地方性流行传播区域存在显著差异，该差异可能与循环传播的克氏锥虫（Trypanosoma cruzi）虫株的遗传及生物学特性相关。本研究针对来自亚马逊西部地区、隶属于离散分型单位（Discrete Typing Unit, DTU）TcI与TcIV的26株克氏锥虫虫株，以瑞士小鼠（Swiss mice）为实验模型开展对比研究，旨在验证“克氏锥虫的克隆结构对其生物学与医学特性具有显著影响”这一假说。
研究方法与主要结果：对感染了14株TcI型克氏锥虫菌株与11株经分型为TcIV型克氏锥虫菌株的小鼠，共检测了17项相关参数。与TcI型虫株相比，TcIV型虫株可显著缩短感染潜伏期（p
结论与意义：来自巴西亚马逊地区的TcI与TcIV型克氏锥虫虫株，在小鼠模型中展现出显著不同的生物学与医学特性。