Abstract
African trypanosomes (the prototype of which is Trypanosoma brucei brucei) are protozoan parasites that infect a wide range of mammals. Human blood, unlike the blood of other mammals, has efficient trypanolytic activity, and this needs to be counteracted by these parasites. Resistance to this activity has arisen in two subspecies of Trypanosoma brucei — Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense — allowing these parasites to infect humans, and this results in sleeping sickness in East Africa and West Africa, respectively. Study of the mechanism by which T. b. rhodesiense escapes lysis by human serum led to the identification of an ionic-pore-forming apolipoprotein — known as apolipoprotein L1 — that is associated with high-density-lipoprotein particles in human blood. In this Opinion article, we argue that apolipoprotein L1 is the factor that is responsible for the trypanolytic activity of human serum.
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Acknowledgements
This paper is dedicated to the memory of M. Steinert. This work was supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS), the United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank, and World Health Organization Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), and the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme (Belgian Science Policy).
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Pays, E., Vanhollebeke, B., Vanhamme, L. et al. The trypanolytic factor of human serum. Nat Rev Microbiol 4, 477–486 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1428
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1428
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