Biologists have discovered a mechanism for masking the sleeping sickness parasite in human blood

Biologists at York University have found out how the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness remains invisible to the human immune system for years. It turned out that he destroys his own genetic instructions in real time using a special protein that works as a molecular shredder. This was reported on April 2 in the journal Science Daily.

"We found that the secret of the parasite is not only in what it produces, but also in what it prefers to destroy. By placing a "molecular shredder" right inside its "protein production plant," the parasite edits genetic instructions in real time," said Joana Faria, lead author of the study and head of the scientific group at York University.

African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is transmitted through the bite of a tsetse fly and enters the central nervous system without treatment, causing sleep disorders, confusion and coma. The causative agent of the disease, the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, survives in the bloodstream due to a protective "cloak" of special proteins — variant surface glycoproteins.

The genetic instructions encoding this "cloak" also contain several auxiliary genes. At the same time, for a long time it remained unclear why the parasite produces a large number of protective proteins with a minimal level of expression of auxiliary ones, despite the fact that the genome structure suggests a different ratio.

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A new study provides an answer: the parasite has found a clever way out — it does not slow down the production of unnecessary proteins, but simply destroys the "recipes" for their manufacture even before they have time to work. The ESB2 protein is responsible for this, which behaves like a shredder: it sits right inside the "factory" and cuts unnecessary instructions as they are read, without touching the necessary ones.

This mechanism means that the parasite controls its invisibility not at the stage of creating proteins, but even earlier — at the stage of destroying information about them. According to the authors, this changes the understanding of how the survival of microorganisms inside someone else's body generally works.

The discovery is important from a practical point of view: if scientists manage to block the work of the ESB2 protein, the parasite will lose its protection and become vulnerable to the immune system. African sleeping sickness, which is carried by tsetse flies, is still killing people in sub-Saharan Africa. Without treatment, the parasite enters the central nervous system, causing sleep disorders, confusion, and coma.

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On September 2, The Telegraph newspaper reported the discovery of a new Salt Gully virus by scientists in Australia. It was clarified that the disease was found in a bat sample dating back to 2011. It was noted that this indicates the absence of its manifestation and transmission to other animals and humans for more than 10 years.

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