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Chagas disease and HIV co-infection: genetic analyses of twoTrypanosoma cruzistrains under experimental immunosuppression by Célia M Marques de Brito; Marize Q Pires; Raquel S Pacheco is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Chagas disease and HIV co-infection: genetic analyses of twoTrypanosoma cruzistrains under experimental immunosuppression about?

## Background: Recently new aspects of the immunopathology of Chagas disease have been described in patients infected with HIV and unusual clinical manifestations such as cutaneous lesions, involvement of central nervous system and/or serious cardiac lesions related to the reactivation of the parasite have been reported. Two uncloned Trypanosoma cruzi strains previously isolated from chronic chagasic patients with HIV co-infection were studied in order to evaluate the impact of the immunosuppression on the genetic diversity of the parasite. ## Results: We have exploited an experimental model to determine whether genetically distinct populations appear after immunosuppression as a consequence of in vivo selection or in vitro propagation. The in vitro and in vivo conditions have allowed us to study the selected populations. The first strain was isolated from a case of reactivation of Chagas disease in a patient which presented four cerebral lesions. It was possible to demonstrate that the patient was infected with at least three distinct populations of T. cruzi. The population, recovered after immunosuppression, in mice was genetically divergent from the primary human isolate. The se

Author

Célia M Marques de Brito; Marize Q Pires; Raquel S Pacheco

Publisher

BioMed Central; Springer (Biomed Central Ltd.); London: BioMed Central, 2002-; Springer Science and Business Media LLC (ISSN 1475-9292)

Published

2003