Laboratory techniques to obtain different forms of Trypanosoma cruzi: applications to wild-type and genetically modified parasites.

Nowadays, there are no simple techniques for mimicking in vitro the life cycle of the kinetoplasmtid Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas, 1909, causative agent of Chagas disease, especially for parasite strains maintained as epimastigotes for many years. In the present study, we propose a method for obtaining metacyclic trypomastigotes, which were capable of infecting mammalian cells by simply lowering pH media. The collected amastigotes and trypomastigotes were differentiated into epimastigotes closing T.