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Infection and Immunity, February 2007, p. 634-642, Vol. 75, No. 2
0019-9567/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.01228-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Infection with Toxoplasma gondii Bradyzoites Has a Diminished Impact on Host Transcript Levels Relative to Tachyzoite Infection{triangledown},{dagger}

A. E. Fouts and J. C. Boothroyd1*

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305-51241

Received 2 August 2006/ Returned for modification 29 August 2006/ Accepted 30 October 2006

Toxoplasma gondii, an intracellular pathogen, has the potential to infect nearly every warm-blooded animal but rarely causes morbidity. The ability for the parasite to convert to the bradyzoite stage and live inside slow-growing cysts that can go unnoticed by the host immune system allows for parasite persistence for the life of the infected host. This intracellular survival likely necessitates host cell modulation, and tachyzoites are known to modify a number of signaling cascades within the host to promote parasite survival. Little is known, however, about how bradyzoites manipulate their host cell. Microarrays were used to profile the host transcriptional changes caused by bradyzoite infection and compared to those of tachyzoite-infected and uninfected hosts cells 2 days postinfection in vitro. Infection resulted in chemokine, cytokine, extracellular matrix, and growth factor transcript level changes. A small group of genes were specifically induced by tachyzoite infection, including granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, BCL2-related protein A1, and interleukin-24. Bradyzoite infection yielded only about half the changes seen with tachyzoite infection, and those changes that did occur were almost all of lower magnitude than those induced by tachyzoites. These results suggest that bradyzoites lead a more stealthy existence within the infected host cell.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Fairchild Building D305, 300 Pasteur Dr., Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5124. Phone: (650) 723-7984. Fax: (650) 723-6853. E-mail: john.boothroyd{at}stanford.edu.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 6 November 2006.

Editor: W. A. Petri, Jr.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://iai.asm.org/.

Infection and Immunity, February 2007, p. 634-642, Vol. 75, No. 2
0019-9567/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.01228-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Nelson, M. M., Jones, A. R., Carmen, J. C., Sinai, A. P., Burchmore, R., Wastling, J. M. (2008). Modulation of the Host Cell Proteome by the Intracellular Apicomplexan Parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Infect. Immun. 76: 828-844 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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