Abstract
Crithidia fasciculata is a non‐pathogenic parasite related to human‐infective parasites including Trypanosoma bruceiwhich causes African Sleeping Sickness, T. cruziwhich causes Chagas’ disease, and Leishmania spp. which causes leishmaniasis. We developed a Course Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) on Crithidiaparasitology for a 300‐level biochemistry laboratory. Optical density at 600nm was used to study parasite cell density compared to hemocytometer counts of cells. At 27⁰C the population doubled every four hours. Carbon‐13 NMR was used to study Crithidia fasciculatametabolism of 1‐13C‐glucose. NMR peaks for the fermentation products ethanol and succinate increased over time. Competition experiments demonstrated that sucrose competed with glucose as a carbon source, fructose metabolism was less efficient than glucose, and xylose did not compete. Students also designed their own projects on Crithidia, building a toolbox of interesting stressors and successful assays to study biochemical parasitology with Crithidiaparasites.
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