Reader Comments
Post a new comment on this article
Post Your Discussion Comment
Please follow our guidelines for comments and review our competing interests policy. Comments that do not conform to our guidelines will be promptly removed and the user account disabled. The following must be avoided:
- Remarks that could be interpreted as allegations of misconduct
- Unsupported assertions or statements
- Inflammatory or insulting language
Thank You!
Thank you for taking the time to flag this posting; we review flagged postings on a regular basis.
closeMechanism of action of TgsGP
Posted by Yassum on 07 Oct 2013 at 09:36 GMT
This paper comes a bit later than the one published by our group in Nature, titled "Mechanism of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense resistance to human serum" (PMID: 23965626 ; doi: 10.1038/nature12516). It supports the observations that were made, but doesn't go as far in the description of the molecular mechanism underlying the resistance conferred by TgsGP. Notably it doesn't explain why TgsGP cannot confer resistance to T.b.brucei.
As was shown in the aforementioned paper, resistance to ApoL1 is principally mediated by the hydrophobic ß-sheet of the T. b. gambiense specific glycoprotein which induces stiffening of membranes upon interaction with lipids. However, other factors are involved in resistance, a change in the cysteine protease activity and TbHpHbR inactivation by a mutation. All those factors work together to confer resistance to T.b.gambiense and explain why expression of TgsGP is not sufficient to confer resistance to T.b.brucei.