Sleeping Sickness/Cytokine Effects on Biological Clock

Our laboratory has developed expertise of the sleeping sickness model in rats. Dr Jama Mhlanga, from Bulawayo University in Zimbabwe, is now working with trypanosomes in Stockholm as a guest researcher for two 2-3 months periods every year. Dr Mhlanga is an expert in trypanosomiasis and has been involved in developing the chronic disease in Sprague-Dawley rats in the laboratory. We will use the information of the disease progress in Sprague Dawley rats to establish chronic infections in your transgenic Wistar rats. We do not know, but the Wistars may show a slightly different immunological reaction to the parasitic infection as compared with Sprague Dawleys. In Stockholm we will for this purpose use pleomorphic T. b. brucei derived from stabilates shipped to them from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. We also have access to, an antibody directed against the VSG trypanosome coat protein so we can stain trypanosomes in SCN slices maintained in culture. This is crucial for the recordings using our transgenic per-luc rats, since we so far do not have any information of how trypanosomes survive whole tissue culture environment. The trypanosomes may release factors directly into the slice that could affect sleep/rhythms in the clock. The laboratory is presently involved in trying to identify trypanosome-released factors that may affect the immune system and the nervous system. This part of the project will be performed by Dr. Willias Masocha, Department of Pharmacology, University of Harare, who will start a period of postdoctoral studies in the laboratory under the supervision of Dr. J Mhlanga and Dr. P Löw. If we observe disruptions in clock gene expression, we should use the antibody to locate trypanosomes in the tissue.