Folia Parasitologica 66:001 (2019) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2019.001

Nanoparticles show potential to retard bradyzoites in vitro formation of Toxoplasma gondii

Oluyomi Stephen Adeyemi^1,2, Yuho Murata¹, Tatsuki Sugi¹, Yongmei Han¹, Kentaro Kato¹

¹ National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Inada-cho, Obihiro, Japan;

² Medicinal Biochemistry and Toxicology Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, Landmark University, Ipetu Road, Nigeria

Toxoplasmosis is a common parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908), an obligate parasite capable of infecting a range of cell types in almost all warm-blooded animals. Upon infecting an intermediate host, the parasites differentiate into tachyzoites which rapidly infect host tissues. Usually, the invading parasites are cleared by the immune system and administered drugs, but some tachyzoites differentiate into bradyzoites forming tissue cysts. These tissue cysts could serve as a source for re-infection and exacerbations. Currently, treatment for toxoplasmosis is limited and, moreover, there are no drugs for treating the cystic stage thus rendering toxoplasmosis a global burden. Recently, we demonstrated that inorganic nanoparticles showed promising activity against the tachyzoite stage T. gondii. In the present study, we evaluated nanoparticles for effect on bradyzoite formation in vitro. Data revealed that the nanoparticles limited bradyzoite burden in vitro. Further, the nanoparticles decreased the bradyzoite-specific BAG-1 promoter activity relative to the untreated control under a bradyzoite-inducing culture condition, even though this reduction in BAG-1 promoter activity waned with increasing concentrations of nanoparticles. In contrast, a parallel experiment under normal cell culture conditions showed that the nanoparticle treatment mildly increased the BAG-1 promoter activity relative to the untreated control. Taken together, the findings are evidence that nanoparticles not only possess anti-tachyzoite potential but they also have anti-bradyzoite potential in vitro.

Keywords: cyst, infection, medicinal biochemistry, nanomedicine, toxoplasmosis

Received: March 10, 2018; Accepted: January 9, 2019; Published online: February 21, 2019  Show citation