Professor
Federal University of São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil
http://www2.unifesp.br/home_diadema/busca_info_docente.php?id=9170541
During my post-doctoral training, I studied the role of these vesicles on the in vivo T. cruzi infection in the murine model. Our data suggest that, similar to what was observed in vitro, the vesicles generate a strong inflammatory response in vivo. We demonstrated that these membranes increase inflammatory reaction and produced more parasites in the tissues and a severe heart pathology. This severe pathology was due to an increase of T CD4+ and T CD8+ cells with a decrease of iNOS producing. In a previous work, we showed that vesicles released by infective forms of Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent causative of Chagas’ disease, modulate the inflammatory responses and the infection in cultured cells and animals. Our group showed also have shown that virulent strains of T. cruzi release more vesicles in vitro when compared to less virulent isolates of the parasite. Our project aims initially to characterize the composition and quantity of vesicles of different isolates of the parasite and then correlate these with the infectivity in cultured cells and experimental animal models. As the vesicles have an immunomodulatory effect, parallel studies will evaluate the role of these vesicles in a model of infection by virus ou protozoa. This work will help to demonstrate the role of these vesicles as immunomodulatory factors and verify whether these factors also act in other models of infection.
