Transcriptome analysis of Cryptosporidium parvum development in vitro.
Mirhashemi, Marzieh.
2016
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Abstract: Human cryptosporidiosis is caused primarily by two Cryptosporidium species, C. parvum and C. hominis. The infection is frequent in immune-compromised individuals and considered an opportunistic infection. Effective drugs to control cryptosporidiosis do not exist. Cryptosporidium parasites are cultured in monolayers of epithelial cells but the method is deficient because the parasite cann... read moreot be continuously propagated. Drug screening efforts are hampered by a lack of culture methods enabling the continuous propagation of the parasite. By comparing gene expression in infected and uninfected cultured cell monolayers we identified genes that are involved in apoptosis, cell growth and division are differentially expressed in infected cells. In addition to the potential for improving Cryptosporidium culture and facilitating drug screening in culture, sequencing the transcriptome of infected cells in high-throughput (RNA-Seq) provides new insights into the intracellular development of Cryptosporidium parasites. By making high-throughput sequence data from the transcriptome of infected cell cultures (intercellular stages of the parasite) available to the research community, new opportunities for investigating the biology of those stages of the infection, which cause disease and have remained virtually unexplored, were created. This study found a total of 696 genes to be differentially expressed (False Discovery Rate <0.05). Based on differentially expressed genes, host metabolic pathways were identified as differentially expressed in response to C. parvum infection. Some of these transcriptional changes have been studied before. The findings of this current study found up-regulation of host heat-shock genes and genes for Cysteine X Cysteine (CXC) chemokine. Host genes involved in cell proliferation and apoptosis found to be differentially expressed. In conclusion this study illustrated significant changes in host biological functions as a result of C. parvum infection and provides new understandings into biology of infectious disease caused by this intracellular protozoan parasite.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2016.
Submitted to the Dept. of Clinical & Translational Science.
Advisor: Giovanni Widmer.
Committee: Farzad Noubary, and Gordon Huggins.
Keyword: Molecular biology.read less - ID:
- 3j333d58b
- Component ID:
- tufts:20451
- To Cite:
- DCA Citation Guide EndNote
