Czech scientists help combat sleeping sickness

Prague, Feb 8 (CTK) - Researchers from the Czech Science Academy's (AV) Institute of Molecular Genetics have discovered groups of genes that regulate the human organism's resistance to the fatal African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness, the AV press section has reported.

This parasitic disease of people and other mammals is caused by protozoa of the Trypanosoma brucei species and transmitted by the tsetse fly.

"The identification of the genes responsible for the resistance to trypanosoma will contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms causing African trypanosomiasis. It may lead to new methods to overcome the immunity system's collapse in the fight against trypanosoma," senior researcher Marie Lipoldova said, summarising her team's findings.

The researchers used several mice stems in the search for the respective genes.

Along with malaria and HIV, African trypanosomiasis is the most dangerous disease for the inhabitants of the Sub-Saharan Africa and a major obstacle to their fight against poverty and economic underdevelopment.

Up to 30,000 people fall ill with sleeping sickness and thousands of livestock pieces get infected a year, which seriously affects farming, the main source of living in these African areas.

Research into this disease should become one of the priorities of the whole world community, Lipoldova said.

Czech scientists have found out that genetically diverse mice infected with trypanosoma survive for a differently long time.

Some products of these genes (proteins) are in liver, spleen and brain. These organs are attacked by trypanosoma. Other products of the genes appear on the surface of the immunity system's cells that are indispensable in the fight with this parasite.

Unfortunately, the so far used medicines against African trypanosomiasis are often inefficient because trypanosoma has become resistant to them, Lipoldova noted.

Though the infection can be lethal, some mammals successfully fight against the parasite. The resistance to the trypanosoma-provoked infection is regulated by a number of genes that the Czech team is looking into.