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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1986 Aug;83(16):6063–6064. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.16.6063

Evidence for haploidy in metacyclic forms of Trypanosoma brucei.

F Zampetti-Bosseler, J Schweizer, E Pays, L Jenni, M Steinert
PMCID: PMC386438  PMID: 3461475

Abstract

The parasitic flagellate Trypanosoma brucei undergoes a series of morphologic and metabolic changes during its passage in the digestive organs of its insect vector, a Glossina or tsetse fly. This morphogenesis ends by the differentiation, in the salivary gland of the fly, of the metacyclic form, which will be transmitted in the bloodstream of the mammalian host. On the basis of DNA microfluorometric measurements, we propose that these metacyclic trypanosomes have a haploid amount of DNA, compared to that of bloodstream forms and also of the proventricular forms, which initiate the invasion of the salivary glands. It can be inferred that trypanosomes undergo meiosis during their developmental cycle in the tsetse fly's salivary glands and syngamy shortly after cyclic transmission.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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