Journal
TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE
Volume 103, Issue 10, Pages 1011-1018Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.trstmh.2009.03.004
Keywords
Chagas disease; Trypanosoma cruzi; Congenital; Placenta; Nitric oxide; Chorionic villi
Funding
- SECyT-Universidad Nacional Cordoba
- SECyT-Universidad Nacional La Rioja
- Agencia Nacional Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica [PME03]
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Chagas disease is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, which can be transmitted to the fetus via the transplacental route. Factors that may be involved in transplacental transmission include parasite strain and placental immunological competence. The aim of this work was to compare the biological differences between two subpopulations of T cruzi with respect to their interaction with the human placenta in vitro. We found that the Tulahuen strain (sublineage Tclle) and another strain isolated from a congenitally infected newborn child had similar rates of productive infection in human chorionic villi in vitro, with similar deleterious nitric oxide levels between the two strains. We also found that the congenital T cruzi stock had a greater ability than the Tulahuen strain to survive in the placental deleterious media, with the difference acquiring more importance considering the low reproductive rate of both subpopulations of T cruzi within placental cells. As the presence of T cruzi is a necessary condition to produce congenital transmission, we propose that the different survival rates of strains of T cruzi in an adverse placental environment offer an opportunity for the parasite to infect the placenta in order to produce a sustainable infection during pregnancy, with the subsequent possibility of infecting the fetus. (c) 2009 Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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