Cyclical transmission of in vitro cultivated bloodstream forms and procyclic trypomastigotes of trypanosoma brucei brucei by Glossina morsitans morsitans.

In vitro cultivated bloodstream and procyclic forms of Trypanosoma b. brucei STIB 247 were cyclically transmitted by Glossina m. morsitans. The tsetse flies were infected artificially on a silicon membrane. Metacyclic trypanosomes from mature salivary gland infections were used to initiate bloodstream form cultures. They transformed into slender bloodstream forms and gave rise to established cultures that proved to be infective for the vector. The metacyclic forms retained the strain-specific basic set of variable antigen types.