Efeito de compostos sintéticos sobre a integridade do DNA genômico de Trypanosoma cruzi

Abstract

Trypanosoma cruzi is a hemoflagellate protozoan, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease. This protozoan presents in its life cycle three distinct evolutionary forms; trypomastigotes, amastigotes and epimastigotes, which have several characteristics with an important role in the evolutionary process of the parasite. Thus, the present work aimed to evaluate the effect of synthetic compounds (diaryl disulfides) on the integrity of the genomic DNA of Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes. To carry out the experiment, the epimastigotes forms were obtained from axenic cultivation in exponential phase of growth. The epimastigotes forms were added to 1mL of LIT medium in tubes with a capacity of 1.5mL at a concentration of 1x107parasites/mL. To verify the influence of biologically active compounds on the integrity of the genomic DNA of the parasites, it was incubated for 4 hours in LIT medium in the presence/absence of the CL90 of the compounds previously tested and considered biologically active against T. cruzi. The genomic DNA of the samples was submitted to electrophoresis in a 1% agarose gel under constant current. To verify the integrity of the genomic DNA, the gel was stained in an ethidium bromide bath and photographed under ultraviolet light. Thus, based on the results it was possible to the diaryl disulfide compounds did not cause damage to the chromatin of the T. cruzi epimastigotes, since there was no fragmentation of the genomic DNA of the parasites submitted to the treatment with high concentrations of the compounds. Therefore, these results suggest that compounds do not activate the death mechanism. Therefore, further studies are needed to investigate the mechanism of action of these compounds on the etiologic agent of Chagas disease.