ArticlePLoS pathogens2021
Trypanosoma brucei triggers a broad immune response in the adipose tissue.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advances in the Role of Adipose Tissue in Promoting Injury Repair and Resist Infection.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2026Review
- The critical window for host defense: macrophage trogocytosis eliminatesFrontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- The role of autophagy in protozoan infections.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Review
- Interplay of obesity and parasitic infection: current evidence of immunogenesis, tumorigenesis and leptin receptor involvement.Nutrition & metabolism · 2025Review
- Adipose Tissue in Chagas Disease: A Neglected Component of Pathogenesis.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- A murine model ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Cholesterol Efflux Decreases TLR4-Target Gene Expression in Cultured Macrophages Exposed toMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- A murine model ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- The intersection of hostMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2024Review
- Advances in the Immunology of the Host-Parasite Interactions in African Trypanosomosis, including Single-Cell Transcriptomics.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- IL-17 signalling is critical for controlling subcutaneous adipose tissue dynamics and parasite burden during chronic murine Trypanosoma brucei infection.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Adipocyte lipolysis protects mice against Trypanosoma brucei infection.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- CD4+ T cells regulate sickness-induced anorexia and fat wasting during a chronic parasitic infection.Cell reports · 2023Article
- Tackling Sleeping Sickness: Current and Promising Therapeutics and Treatment Strategies.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Adipose Tissue Remodeling in Pathophysiology.Annual review of pathology · 2023Review
- Impact of pulmonary African trypanosomes on the immunology and function of the lung.Nature communications · 2022Article
- The Defensive Interactions of Prominent Infectious Protozoan Parasites: The Host's Complement System.Biomolecules · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Adipose tissue is one of the major reservoirs of Trypanosoma brucei parasites, the causative agent of sleeping sickness, a fatal disease in humans. In mice, the gonadal adipose tissue (AT) typically harbors 2-5 million parasites, while most solid organs show 10 to 100-fold fewer parasites. In this study, we tested whether the AT environment responds immunologically to the presence of the parasite. Transcriptome analysis of T. brucei infected adipose tissue revealed that most upregulated host genes are involved in inflammation and immune cell functions. Histochemistry and flow cytometry confirmed an increasingly higher number of infiltrated macrophages, neutrophils and CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes upon infection. A large proportion of these lymphocytes effectively produce the type 1 effector cytokines, IFN-γ and TNF-α. Additionally, the adipose tissue showed accumulation of antigen-specific IgM and IgG antibodies as infection progressed. Mice lacking T and/or B cells (Rag2-/-, Jht-/-), or the signature cytokine (Ifng-/-) displayed a higher parasite load both in circulation and in the AT, demonstrating the key role of the adaptive immune system in both compartments. Interestingly, infections of C3-/- mice showed that while complement system is dispensable to control parasite load in the blood, it is necessary in the AT and other solid tissues. We conclude that T. brucei infection triggers a broad and robust immune response in the AT, which requires the complement system to locally reduce parasite burden.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.