Frontiers in Genomics: Walderez O. Dutra
How can you mend a broken heart?

Resumen de la charla:
Chagas disease, a neglected disease caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is endemic in 21 Latin American countries, affecting 6–8 million people. Increasing numbers of Chagas disease cases have also been reported in non-endemic countries due to migration, contamination via blood transfusions or organ transplantation, characterizing Chagas as an emerging disease in such regions. While most individuals in the chronic phase of Chagas disease remain in an asymptomatic clinical form named indeterminate, approximately 30% of the patients develop a cardiomyopathy that is amongst the deadliest cardiopathies known. The clinical distinctions between the indeterminate and the cardiac clinical forms are associated with different immune responses mediated by innate and adaptive cells. In this seminar, we will discuss several aspects that demonstrate the association between chemokines, cytokines, and cytotoxic molecules with the distinct clinical outcomes of human infection with Trypanosoma cruzi, focusing on the role of gamma-delta T-cells. In addition, we will discuss the potential application of interfering with gamma-delta T-cell function as targets for immunotherapeutic approaches to control Chagas disease cardiomyopathy.

Walderez O. Dutra. Laboratório de Biologia das Interações Celulares. Instituto de Ciências Biológicas. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

https://sites.icb.ufmg.br/morfologia/portal/walderez-ornelas-dutra/

Frontiers in Genomics