Tracking the Trypanosoma brucei host-pathogen interface in high resolution

Monday, September 23, 2024 at 12 PM EST

Monica Mugnier, PhD

Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Hybrid seminar in Hill 132 and via Zoom: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/91485597704

ABSTRACT:

Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of human and animal African trypanosomiases, employs a sophisticated mechanism of antigenic variation to evade recognition by the host immune system. The parasite is coated in a dense variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) coat, effectively obscuring immune recognition of other, invariant, proteins on the parasite’s surface. Drawing from an enormous repertoire of VSG-encoding genes, T. brucei periodically “switches” expression to a new VSG, evading recognition by the host immune system. Our lab has developed a number of high-resolution methods to examine the dynamics of T. brucei antigenic variation in vivo, revealing unexpected complexity and new features of the process. In this talk, I will present our work characterizing the important role that host tissue spaces play in facilitating antigenic variation, as well as our recent studies investigating the recombination mechanisms that allow T. brucei tocontinuallyexpand its repertoire of VSGs. 

BIO:

Monica Mugnier is an Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her undergraduate degree from Tufts University, where she majored in Biochemistry. She then attended Rockefeller University for her PhD, where she developed a high-throughput sequencing approach for characterizing antigenic variation in Trypanosoma brucei, providing the first high-resolution glimpse into the parasite’s complex immune evasion strategy in vivo. She began her position at Johns Hopkins immediately following her PhD, with the support of an NIH Early Independence Award. Her lab develops and applies high-throughput sequencing approaches for understanding host-pathogen interactions in parasite infection, with a focus on the trypanosomatid parasites Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi.

WEBSITE: https://www.mugnierlab.org/