ArticleCellular microbiology2014
Bioluminescence imaging of chronic Trypanosoma cruzi infections reveals tissue-specific parasite dynamics and heart disease in the absence of locally persistent infection.
Article in Cellular microbiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 136 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
136 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 235 citations in OpenAlex.
- Noninvasive Biological Samples to Detect and Diagnose Infections due to Trypanosomatidae Parasites: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Pooled it
- Drug discovery for Chagas disease should consider Trypanosoma cruzi strain diversity.Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz · 2014Guideline
- IID432, a parasite-selective topoisomerase II inhibitor, achieves rapid single-dose parasite clearance in a murine chronic Chagas model.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Article
- Overcoming Trypanosoma cruzi persistence with a mechanistically distinct drug combination.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2026Article
- A strategic discovery roadmap towards high-quality leads and drug development candidates for kinetoplastid diseases. Part 2: from molecule to confirmed hit.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2026Review
- Discovery of IID432 for Chagas Disease: A Cyanotriazole Inhibitor ofJournal of medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- A Rapid Method for Purifying Intact Trypanosoma cruzi Amastigotes from Host Cells, In Vitro and In Vivo, for Downstream 'Omic Analysis.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Double negative T cells (CD4Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- An all-in-one pipeline for the in vitro discovery and in vivo testing of Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission blocking drugs.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Antitrypanosomal quinazolines targeting lysyl-tRNA synthetase show partial efficacy in a mouse model of acute Chagas disease.Science translational medicine · 2025Article
- Intermittent suppressive posaconazole therapy is ineffective at mitigating cardiac and digestive tract pathologies in an experimental model of chronic Chagas disease.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Statins do not reduce the parasite burden during experimentalAntimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling of benznidazole and its antitrypanosomal activity in a murine model of chronic Chagas disease.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Adipose Tissue in Chagas Disease: A Neglected Component of Pathogenesis.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Different responses involving Tfh cells delay parasite-specific antibody production inFrontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Towards a map of the immune system manipulation network byFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Review
- Animal models for exploring Chagas disease pathogenesis and supporting drug discovery.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Cardiac involvement in Chagas disease and African trypanosomiasis.Nature reviews. Cardiology · 2024Review
- Oral Pyronaridine Tetraphosphate Reduces Tissue Presence of Parasites in a Mouse Model of Chagas Disease.ACS omega · 2024Article
76 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Chronic Trypanosoma cruzi infections lead to cardiomyopathy in 20-30% of cases. A causal link between cardiac infection and pathology has been difficult to establish because of a lack of robust methods to detect scarce, focally distributed parasites within tissues. We developed a highly sensitive bioluminescence imaging system based on T. cruzi expressing a novel luciferase that emits tissue-penetrating orange-red light. This enabled long-term serial evaluation of parasite burdens in individual mice with an in vivo limit of detection of significantly less than 1000 parasites. Parasite distributions during chronic infections were highly focal and spatiotemporally dynamic, but did not localize to the heart. End-point ex vivo bioluminescence imaging allowed tissue-specific quantification of parasite loads with minimal sampling bias. During chronic infections, the gastro-intestinal tract, specifically the colon and stomach, was the only site where T. cruzi infection was consistently observed. Quantitative PCR-inferred parasite loads correlated with ex vivo bioluminescence and confirmed the gut as the parasite reservoir. Chronically infected mice developed myocarditis and cardiac fibrosis, despite the absence of locally persistent parasites. These data identify the gut as a permissive niche for long-term T. cruzi infection and show that canonical features of Chagas disease can occur without continual myocardium-specific infection.
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