TY - JOUR
T1 - Mammalian cellular culture models of trypanosoma cruzi infection
T2 - A review of the published literature
AU - Duran-Rehbein, Gabriel Alberto
AU - Vargas-Zambrano, Juan Camilo
AU - Cuéllar, Adriana
AU - Puerta, Concepción Judith
AU - Gonzalez, John Mario
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Jenny Machetá, Universidad de los Andes, for valuable assistance in acquiring some of the reviewed articles and Alanna Gibbons for reviewing the paper. This work was supported by the Vicerectoría de Investigaciones, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá-Colombia.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Cellular culture infection with Trypanosoma cruzi is a tool used to dissect the biological mechanisms behind Chagas disease as well as to screen potential trypanocidal compounds. Data on these models are highly heterogeneous, which represents a challenge when attempting to compare different studies. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the cell culture infectivity assays performed to date. Scientific journal databases were searched for articles in which cultured cells were infected with any Trypanosoma cruzi strain or isolate regardless of the study's goal. From these articles the cell type, parasite genotype, culture conditions and infectivity results were extracted. This review represents an initial step toward the unification of infectivity model data. Important differences were detected when comparing the pathophysiology of Chagas disease with the experimental conditions used in the analyzed studies. While Trypanosoma cruzi preferentially infects stromal cells in vivo, most of the assays employ epithelial cell lines. Furthermore, the most commonly used parasite strain (Tulahuen-TcVI) is associated with chagasic cardiomyopathy only in the Southern Cone of South America. Suggestions to overcome these discrepancies include the use of stromal cell lines and parasite genotypes associated with the known characteristics of the natural history of Chagas disease.
AB - Cellular culture infection with Trypanosoma cruzi is a tool used to dissect the biological mechanisms behind Chagas disease as well as to screen potential trypanocidal compounds. Data on these models are highly heterogeneous, which represents a challenge when attempting to compare different studies. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the cell culture infectivity assays performed to date. Scientific journal databases were searched for articles in which cultured cells were infected with any Trypanosoma cruzi strain or isolate regardless of the study's goal. From these articles the cell type, parasite genotype, culture conditions and infectivity results were extracted. This review represents an initial step toward the unification of infectivity model data. Important differences were detected when comparing the pathophysiology of Chagas disease with the experimental conditions used in the analyzed studies. While Trypanosoma cruzi preferentially infects stromal cells in vivo, most of the assays employ epithelial cell lines. Furthermore, the most commonly used parasite strain (Tulahuen-TcVI) is associated with chagasic cardiomyopathy only in the Southern Cone of South America. Suggestions to overcome these discrepancies include the use of stromal cell lines and parasite genotypes associated with the known characteristics of the natural history of Chagas disease.
KW - Chagas disease
KW - In vitro cell culture
KW - Literature review
KW - Trypanosoma cruzi
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905513040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1051/parasite/2014040
DO - 10.1051/parasite/2014040
M3 - Review article
C2 - 25083732
AN - SCOPUS:84905513040
SN - 1252-607X
VL - 21
JO - Parasite
JF - Parasite
M1 - 38
ER -