Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
Adv Parasitol. 2011;75:209-30. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385863-4.00010-1.
Trypanosoma cruzi has a heterogeneous population composed of a pool of strains that circulate in the domestic and sylvatic cycles. Genome sequencing of the clone CL Brener revealed a highly repetitive genome of about 110Mb containing an estimated 22,570 genes. Because of its hybrid nature, sequences representing the two haplotypes have been generated. In addition, a repeat content close to 50% made the assembly of the estimated 41 pairs of chromosomes quite challenging. Similar to other trypanosomatids, the organization of T. cruzi chromosomes was found to be very peculiar, with protein-coding genes organized in long polycistronic transcription units encoding 20 or more proteins in one strand separated by strand switch regions. Another remarkable feature of the T. cruzi genome is the massive expansion of surface protein gene families. Because of the high genetic diversity of the T. cruzi population, sequencing of additional strains and comparative genomic and transcriptome analyses are in progress. Five years after its publication, the genome data have proven to be an essential tool for the study of T. cruzi and increasing efforts to translate this knowledge into the development of new modes of intervention to control Chagas disease are underway.
克氏锥虫具有由在内外循环中循环的株系组成的异质群体。对克隆 CL Brener 的基因组测序揭示了一个约 110Mb 的高度重复基因组，其中包含约 22570 个基因。由于其杂种性质，已经产生了代表两种单倍型的序列。此外，接近 50%的重复含量使得估计的 41 对染色体的组装极具挑战性。与其他原生动物门生物一样，发现克氏锥虫染色体的组织非常特殊，蛋白质编码基因组织在长多顺反子转录单元中，在一条链上编码 20 个或更多蛋白质，由链转换区隔开。克氏锥虫基因组的另一个显著特征是表面蛋白基因家族的大规模扩张。由于克氏锥虫群体的遗传多样性很高，正在对其他菌株进行测序，并进行比较基因组学和转录组学分析。在其发表五年后，基因组数据已被证明是研究克氏锥虫的重要工具，并且正在努力将这一知识转化为开发新的干预模式以控制恰加斯病。
