Trypanosoma

Trypanosoma are unicellular, parasitic flagellate protozoa. The still image at the beginning is Trypanosoma brucei brucei, which causes the Nagana disease in cattles in Africa. The picture is taken from a blood smear from rats in which the trypanosomes were propagated. The film shows T. cruzi, the causing agent of the Chagas disease in humans which occurs in South America. The stage shown in the film corresponds to the stage found in the vector Triatoma infestans. However, this sample stems from an in vitro cultivation. This video dates from 20 year ago and was recorded by experiments performed in the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basle. These organisms have the particularity to contain a single mitochondrion, which DNA replication is still a nightmare for the molecular biologist to explain: see kinetoplast DNA network: