Construction of bradyzoite expressing the green fluorescent protein

Parasitol Int. 2007 Oct 18; [Epub ahead of print]

Construction of Toxoplasma gondii bradyzoite expressing the green fluorescent protein

Nishikawa Y, Zhang H, Ibrahim HM, Ui F, Ogiso A, Xuan X

National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Inada-cho, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan.

The bradyzoite stage of Toxoplasma gondii is a key step in the parasite life cycle. For a better understanding of this stage, a sensitive system to detect the tissue cysts would be required. In this study, we generated the T. gondii cyst-forming strain PLK expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) under control of the dense granule protein 1 promoter, which works at both the tachyzoite and the bradyzoite stages. The bradyzoites with GFP fluorescence within both small and large cysts were detectable in the brain of mice infected with the recombinant PLK. Indeed, the bradyzoites expressing GFP had infectivity to mice. This study shows that transfection of the cyst-forming strain with GFP gene under control of the GRA1 promoter could be a useful approach for the study of the bradyzoite stage of T. gondii.

PMID: 18006371 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]