| Journal: | Genetics and molecular biology |
| Database: | PERIÓDICA |
| System number: | 000418553 |
| ISSN: | 1415-4757 |
| Authors: | Torres-Silva, Carolina Furtado1 Repoles, Bruno Marçal1 Ornelas, Hugo Oliveira1 Macedo, Andrea Mara1 Franco, Gloria Regina1 Pena, Sergio Danilo Junho1 Tahara, Erich Birelli1 Machado, Carlos Renato1 |
| Institutions: | 1Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Bioquimica e Imunologia, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Brasil |
| Year: | 2018 |
| Season: | Jun |
| Volumen: | 41 |
| Number: | 2 |
| Pages: | 466-474 |
| Country: | Brasil |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Document type: | Artículo |
| Approach: | Experimental |
| English abstract | Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease, a public health challenge due to its morbidity and mortality rates, which affects around 6-7 million people worldwide. Symptoms, response to chemotherapy, and the course of Chagas disease are greatly influenced by T. cruzi‘s intra-specific variability. Thus, DNA mutations in this parasite possibly play a key role in the wide range of clinical manifestations and in drug sensitivity. Indeed, the environmental conditions of oxidative stress faced by T. cruzi during its life cycle can generate genetic mutations. However, the lack of an established experimental design to assess mutation rates in T. cruzi precludes the study of conditions and mechanisms that potentially produce genomic variability in this parasite. We developed an assay that employs a reporter gene that, once mutated in specific positions, convert G418-sensitive into G418-insenstitive T. cruzi. We were able to determine the frequency of DNA mutations in T. cruzi exposed and non-exposed to oxidative insults assessing the number of colony-forming units in solid selective media after plating a defined number of cells. We verified that T. cruzi‘s spontaneous mutation frequency was comparable to those found in other eukaryotes, and that exposure to hydrogen peroxide promoted a two-fold increase in T. cruzi‘s mutation frequency. We hypothesize that genetic mutations in T. cruzi can arise from oxidative insults faced by this parasite during its life cycle |
| Disciplines: | Biología, Química |
| Keyword: | Parasitología, Genética, Bioquímica, Trypanosoma cruzi, ADN, Frecuencia de mutación, H2O2, Estres oxidativo |
| Keyword: | Parasitology, Genetics, Biochemistry, Trypanosoma cruzi, DNA, Mutation frequency, H2O2, DNA |
| Full text: | Texto completo (Ver PDF) |
