Abstract
BackgroundToxoplasma gondii belongs to a large and diverse group of obligate intracellular parasitic protozoa. Primary culture of mice skeletal muscle cells (SkMC) was employed as a model for experimental toxoplasmosis studies. The myogenesis of SkMC was reproduced in vitro and the ability of T. gondii tachyzoite forms to infect myoblasts and myotubes and its influence on SkMC myogenesis were analyzed.ResultsIn this study we show that, after 24 h of interaction, myoblasts (61%) were more infected with T. gondii than myotubes (38%) and inhibition of myogenesis was about 75%. The role of adhesion molecules such as cadherin in this event was investigated. First, we demonstrate that cadherin localization was restricted to the contact areas between myocytes/myocytes and myocytes/myotubes during the myogenesis process. Immunofluorescence and immunoblotting analysis of parasite-host cell interaction showed a 54% reduction in cadherin expression at 24 h of infection. Concomitantly, a reduction in M-cadherin mRNA levels was observed after 3 and 24 h of T. gondii-host cell interaction.ConclusionsThese data suggest that T. gondii is able to down regulate M-cadherin expression, leading to molecular modifications in the host cell surface that interfere with membrane fusion and consequently affect the myogenesis process.
Highlights
Toxoplasma gondii belongs to a large and diverse group of obligate intracellular parasitic protozoa
The results obtained showed that: (i) myoblasts are more susceptible to infection than myotubes; (ii) T. gondii-infected myoblasts are unable to fuse with others myoblasts and myotubes and, (iii) Mcadherin expression is down regulated during infection, indicating that T. gondii interferes with myogenesis in skeletal muscle cells (SkMC) model
These data suggest that the different susceptibility of SkMC myoblasts and myotubes to infection by T. gondii tachyzoites can be related to the remodeling of adhesion molecule expression profiles on host cell surfaces during their differentiation
Summary
Toxoplasma gondii belongs to a large and diverse group of obligate intracellular parasitic protozoa. Primary culture of mice skeletal muscle cells (SkMC) was employed as a model for experimental toxoplasmosis studies. Toxoplasma initially crosses the intestinal epithelium of the mother, disseminates into the deep tissues and traverses the placenta, the blood-brain and the blood-retina barriers [2]. The interaction of T. gondii and primary cultures of skeletal muscle cells has been exploited by our group This model reproduces important characteristics of the in vivo infection and allows in vitro cystogenesis analysis [5,6,7,8,9,15,16,17]. The dynamics of SkMC cultures obtained from mouse embryos allows the investigation of each myogenesis stage [18,19]
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