Anionic Sites, Fucose Residues and Class I Human Leukocyte Antigen Fate During Interaction of Toxoplasma gondii with Endothelial Cells

• Main Authors: Ana Carolina Stumbo, Helene Santos Barbosa, Técia Maria Ulisses de Carvalho, Luís Cristóvão Porto, Laís de Carvalho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2002-06-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: Toxoplasma gondii; endothelial cells; ferritin; Ulex europaeus agglutinin-1; histocompatibility antigens Class
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762002000400012

Toxoplasma gondii invades and proliferates in human umbilical vein endothelial cells where it resides in a parasitophorous vacuole. In order to analyze which components of the endothelial cell plasma membrane are internalized and become part of the parasitophorous vacuole membrane, the culture of endothelial cells was labeled with cationized ferritin or UEA I lectin or anti Class I human leukocytte antigen (HLA) before or after infection with T. gondii. The results showed no cationized ferritin and UEA I lectin in any parasitophorous vacuole membrane, however, the Class I HLA molecule labeling was observed in some endocytic vacuoles containing parasite until 1 h of interaction with T. gondii. After 24 h parasite-host cell interaction, the labeling was absent on the vacuolar membrane, but presents only in small vesicles near parasitophorous vacuole. These results suggest the anionic site and fucose residues are excluded at the time of parasitophorous vacuole formation while Class I HLA molecules are present only on a minority of Toxoplasma-containig vacuoles.