New paper in eLIFE – In a fly’s gut
Tsetse flies transmit African trypanosomiasis, known as sleeping sickness that causes death months or years after infection. More than 70 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of this disease.
The cause of these devastating infections are the protozoa of the species Trypanosoma brucei, which is the research focus of the group of Prof. Markus Engstler at the Biocenter at Würzburg University. Thanks to the recently founded DFG graduate college “3D Infect” our research teams connected and studied the week-long journey of Trypanosoma brucei through the different microenvironments of the tsetse fly´s interior organs with advanced microscopy techniques. Dynamic high resolution microscopy revealed the enormous versatility of the incessantly swimming trypanosomes, which cross various barriers and confined surroundings. These rapidly adaptive processes concur with major changes of parasite cell architecture. The new findings by Sarah Schuster et al. about these highly adaptable host-pathogen interactions are now published in the distinguished journal eLIFE.