Extra Nutritional Requirements of Artificially Aposymbiotic Crithidia deanei*

Abstract

SYNOPSIS. Chloramphenicol cured Crithidia deanei of its endosymbiote. The derived aposymbiotic strain had additional growth requirements: purin (as adenine), heme, arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, valine, pyridoxine, riboflavin, and pantothenate and liver infusion (replaceable by high nicotinamide).

l-Proline uptake in Crithidia deanei is influenced by its endosymbiont bacterium

“…1a and b). As expected, aposymbiont protozoa grew to a lesser extent than the symbiont‐containing trypanosomatids (Mundim & Roitman, 1977). In order to confirm that an aposymbiont strain had been successfully obtained, a PCR to specifically amplify a fragment of the endosymbiont 16S rRNA gene was performed.…”

Phosphatidylcholine synthesis inCrithidia deanei: the influence of the endosymbiont

“…In the past decade, the authors' group had investigated the metabolic exchanges that promote the symbiotic relationship between the insect trypanosomatid C. deanei and its endosymbiont (De Souza & Motta, 1999). As expected, the slow-growing aposymbiotic strain has more stringent nutritional requirements as compared with the endosymbiontbearing strain of C. deanei (Mundim & Roitman, 1977). As expected, the slow-growing aposymbiotic strain has more stringent nutritional requirements as compared with the endosymbiontbearing strain of C. deanei (Mundim & Roitman, 1977).…”

Purine and pyrimidine metabolism in parasitic protozoa

“…Many parasitic protozoa have been shown to require preformed purines in their growth medium. These include Trypanosoma ranarum [15], the insect trypanosomatid Leptomonas pessoai [16], Trypanosoma brucei [17], T. brucei gambiense [18], Leishmania tarentolae [19], Leishmania donovani and Leishmania braziliensis [20], Leishmania tropica and Leishmania mexicana [21], Crithidia fasciculata [22], aposymbiotic Crithidia deanei [23], Crithidia acanthocephali and Crithidia harmosa [24], Trichomonas vaginalis [25], Tritrichomonas foetus [26] and Plasmodium knowlesi [27]. In contrast, the growth of endosymbiont-containing Crithidia oncopelti [28] and C. deanei [29] and Acanthamoeba species [30] was not impaired by deprivation of exogenous purine, which led to the postulation that they can synthesise purines de novo.…”

“…The development of minimal defined media that contain no pyrimidines but which support the growth of parasitic protozoa has shown that de novo synthesis of UMP occurs in these organisms [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. Most parasitic protozoa studied appear to be able to synthesise UMP de novo [2]; exceptions are the trichomonads.…”