The presence in Trypanosoma cruzi microsomes of alpha(1,2), alpha(1,3) and alpha(1,6) mannosidase activities not involved in protein-linked Man9GlcNAc2 processing.

Trypanosoma cruzi microsomes were found to possess membrane-bound alpha(1,2), alpha(1,3) and alpha(1,6) mannosidase activities that had an almost neutral optimum pH value, did not require CaCl2 for activity and were inhibited by swainsonine but not by deoxymannojirimycin. A mannosidase activity that degraded p-nitrophenylmannoside and that was inhibited by swainsonine was also present in the parasite microsomes. Experiments performed with intact cells showed that processing of protein-linked Man9GlcNAc2 was inhibited by deoxymannojirimycin but not by swainsonine. It was concluded that the activities detected were not involved in protein-linked Man9GlcNAc2 processing.