Nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase1 (TcNTPDase-1) gene expression is increased due to heat shock and in infective forms of Trypanosoma cruzi

Background: ecto-nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolases (ecto-ntpdases) are enzymes that hydrolyze tri-and/or di-phosphate nucleotides. evidences point to their participation in trypanosoma cruzi virulence and infectivity. in this work,we evaluate tcntpdase-1 gene expression in comparison with ecto-ntpdase activity,in order to study the role of tcntpdase-1 in parasite virulence,infectivity and adaptation to heat shock. findings: comparison between distinct t. cruzi isolates (y,3663 and 4167 strains,and dm28c,ll014 and cl-14 clones) showed that tcntpdase-1 expression was 7.2 ± 1.5 times higher in the dm28c than the cl-14 avirulent clone. a remarkable expression increase was also observed in the trypomastigote and amastigote forms (22.5 ± 5.6 and 16.3 ± 3.8 times higher than epimastigotes,respectively),indicating that tcntpdase-1 is overexpressed in t. cruzi infective forms. moreover,heat shock and long-term cultivation also induced a significant increment on tcntpdase-1 expression. conclusions: our results suggest that tcntpdase-1 plays an important role on t. cruzi infectivity and adaptation to stress conditions,such as long-term cultivation and heat shock. © 2014 voronin et al.; licensee biomed central ltd.