An Update on Antigenic Variation in African Trypanosomes

Overview

Journal Trends Parasitol

Specialty Parasitology

Date 2001 Jun 26

PMID 11423377

Citations 33

Authors

L Vanhamme

E Pays

R McCulloch

J D Barry

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

African trypanosomes can spend a long time in the blood of their mammalian host, where they are exposed to the immune system and are thought to take advantage of it to modulate their own numbers. Their major immunogenic protein is the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG), the gene for which must be in one of the 20--40 specialized telomeric expression sites in order to be transcribed. Trypanosomes escape antibody-mediated destruction through periodic changes of the expressed VSG gene from a repertoire of approximately 1000. How do trypanosomes exclusively express only one VSG and how do they switch between them?

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Identification of a novel base J binding protein complex involved in RNA polymerase II transcription termination in trypanosomes.

Kieft R, Zhang Y, Marand A, Moran J, Bridger R, Wells L PLoS Genet. 2020; 16(2):e1008390.

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Antigenic variation of TprK facilitates development of secondary syphilis.

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