In vitro and in vivo high-throughput assays for the testing of anti-Trypanosoma cruzi compounds.

Background: The two available drugs for treatment of T. cruzi infection, nifurtimox and benznidazole (BZ), have potential toxic side effects and variable efficacy, contributing to their low rate of use. With scant economic resources available for antiparasitic drug discovery and development, inexpensive, high-throughput and in vivo assays to screen potential new drugs and existing compound libraries are essential.

Chromosome level assembly of the hybrid Trypanosoma cruzi genome.

Background: In contrast to the essentially fully assembled genome sequences of the kinetoplastid pathogens Leishmania major and Trypanosoma brucei the assembly of the Trypanosoma cruzi genome has been hindered by its repetitive nature and the fact that the reference strain (CL Brener) is a hybrid of two distinct lineages. In this work, the majority of the contigs and scaffolds were assembled into pairs of homologous chromosomes based on predicted parental haplotype, inference from TriTryp synteny maps and the use of end sequences from T. cruzi BAC libraries.

High throughput selection of effective serodiagnostics for Trypanosoma cruzi infection.

Background: Diagnosis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection by direct pathogen detection is complicated by the low parasite burden in subjects persistently infected with this agent of human Chagas disease. Determination of infection status by serological analysis has also been faulty, largely due to the lack of well-characterized parasite reagents for the detection of anti-parasite antibodies.

Methods: In this study, we screened more than 400 recombinant proteins of T.