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Basic biology of Trypanosoma brucei with reference to the development of chemotherapies
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Dean, Samuel (2021) Basic biology of Trypanosoma brucei with reference to the development of chemotherapies. Current Pharmaceutical Design, 27 (14). pp. 1650-1670. doi:10.2174/1381612827666210119105008 ISSN 1873-4286.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.2174/1381612827666210119105008
Abstract
Trypanosoma brucei are protozoan parasites that cause the lethal human disease African sleeping sickness and the economically devastating disease of cattle, Nagana. African sleeping sickness, also known as Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), threatens 65 million people and animal trypanosomiasis makes large areas of farmland unusable. There is no vaccine and licensed therapies against the most severe, late-stage disease are toxic, impractical and ineffective. Trypanosomes are transmitted by tsetse flies, and HAT is therefore predominantly confined to the tsetse fly belt in sub-Saharan Africa. They are exclusively extracellular and they differentiate between at least seven developmental forms that are highly adapted to host and vector niches. In the mammalian (human) host they inhabit the blood, cerebrospinal fluid (late-stage disease), skin, and adipose fat. In the tsetse fly vector they travel from the tsetse midgut to the salivary glands via the ectoperitrophic space and proventriculus. Trypanosomes are evolutionarily divergent compared with most branches of eukaryotic life. Perhaps most famous for their extraordinary mechanisms of monoallelic gene expression and antigenic variation, they have also been investigated because much of their biology is either highly unconventional or extreme. Moreover, in addition to their importance as pathogens, many researchers have been attracted to the field because trypanosomes have some of the most advanced molecular genetic tools and database resources of any model system. The following will cover just some aspects of trypanosome biology and how its divergent biochemistry has been leveraged to develop drugs to treat African sleeping sickness. This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive survey of trypanosome features. Rather, I hope to present trypanosomes as one of the most fascinating and tractable systems to do discovery biology.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QH Natural history Q Science > QL Zoology R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Medicine > Warwick Medical School | ||||||||
SWORD Depositor: | Library Publications Router | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Trypanosoma brucei , Kinetoplastida , African trypanosomiasis , African trypanosomiasis -- Treatment, Trypanosomiasis , Cytology , Tsetse-flies, African trypanosomiasis -- Chemotherapy | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Current Pharmaceutical Design | ||||||||
Publisher: | Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1873-4286 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2021 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 27 | ||||||||
Number: | 14 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 1650-1670 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.2174/1381612827666210119105008 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | The published manuscript is available at EurekaSelect via https://www.eurekaselect.com/article/113416 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 11 November 2022 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 11 November 2022 |
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