ERC Advanced Grant · 2023
A sense of direction: cooperative behaviour and chemotaxis in the life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei
Many protozoan parasites have complex life cycles requiring migration through different organs in their hosts. The current mind-set is that parasites act as individuals and that tissue specificity is largely dictated by receptor-ligand interactions between pathogen and host surface molecules. However, parasites are more autonomous and manipulative than we give them credit for. I propose that self-steering, a mechanism by which groups of cells migrate in response to gradients that they create and/or modify, is central to their ability to orient themselves and home into host tissues. Trypanosoma brucei, which causes sleeping sickness, cycles between mammals and tsetse flies. Trypanosomes lack…
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