Trypanosomes Evade Detection by Swapping Coat Proteins Through Chromosomal Rearrangement (IMAGE)
Caption
African trypanosome parasites are densely coated in a single Variant Surface Glycoprotein (VSG- visualized here by immunofluorescence microscopy, DAPI staining are shown). While growing in the bloodstream of humans and other mammals Trypanosoma brucei species evade the host immune response by switching from the expression of one VSG coat to another. This requires selection and activation of a single new VSG gene from a huge number of possible VSG variants encoded throughout the genome. Here we showed that selection of VSG donors from the genomic archive requires a specific repetitive DNA element and defined its critical features.
Credit
Mark Field, University of Cambridge
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