Crithidia fasciculata is a non-pathogenic parasite related to human-infective parasites including Trypanosoma brucei which causes African Sleeping Sickness, T. cruzi which causes Chagas’ disease, and Leishmania spp. which causes leishmaniasis. We developed a Course Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) on Crithidia parasitology for a 300-level biochemistry laboratory. Optical density at 600nm was used to study parasite cell density compared to hemocytometer counts of cells. At 27⁰C the population doubled every four hours. Carbon-13 NMR was used to study Crithidia fasciculata metabolism of 1-13C-glucose. NMR peaks for the fermentation products ethanol and succinate increased over time. Competition experiments demonstrated that sucrose competed with glucose as a carbon source, fructose metabolism was less efficient than glucose, and xylose did not compete. Students also designed their own projects on Crithidia, building a toolbox of interesting stressors and successful assays to study biochemical parasitology with Crithidia parasites.
Albright College start-up funds, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department support.
