Monitoring the pleomorphism of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense isolates in mouse: impact on its transmissibility to Glossina palpalis gambiensis.

Substantial differences have been observed between the cyclical transmission of three Trypanosoma brucei gambiense field isolates in Glossina palpalis gambiensis (Ravel et al., 2006). Differences in the pleomorphism of these isolates in rodent used to provide the infective feed to Glossina, could explain such results, since stumpy forms are preadapted for differentiation to procyclic forms when taken up in a tsetse bloodmeal. To assess this possibility, mice were immunosuppressed and inoculated intraperitoneally with the three isolates (six mice for each trypanosome isolate); then parasitaemia and pleomorphism were determined daily for each mouse. The three T. b. gambiense isolates induced different infection patterns in mouse. The parasitaemia peak was rapidly reached for all the isolates and maintained until mice death for two isolates, while the third isolate rapidly showed a falling phase followed by a second parasitaemia plateau. The proportion of the stumpy forms varied from 15% to 70% over the duration of the experiment and according to the isolate. One isolate, which displayed the highest proportion of stumpy forms and reached the stumpy peak at the onset of the falling phase of parasitaemia, was used to study the relationship between the proportion of stumpy forms and transmissibility to tsetse fly. The results indicated that the transmissibility of trypanosomes was not correlated to the proportion of non-dividing stumpy forms.