Trypanosoma cruzi

Definition

A kinetoplastid protozoan species (family Trypanosomatidae) and the causative agent of Chagas disease in humans and other mammals. The parasite undergoes complex development in the gut of hematophagous triatomine bugs (Reduviidae: Triatominae), which transmit infective metacyclic trypomastigotes through contaminated feces deposited during blood-feeding. Infection occurs when host skin abrasion or mucosal contact allows trypanosomes to penetrate; no direct salivary transmission occurs. The species exhibits broad mammalian host tropism and maintains enzootic cycles involving wild and domestic reservoir hosts.

Etymology

New Latin: Trypanosoma (trypano-, auger or borer + soma, body, referring to corkscrew motility) + cruzi (honoring Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, who discovered the organism and disease in 1909).

Example

Triatoma infestans, the vinchuca, becomes infected with Trypanosoma cruzi when it feeds on an infected rodent or dog; weeks later, the bug's hindgut teems with epimastigotes that transform into infectious metacyclic trypomastigotes shed in feces.

Synonyms

• Schizotrypanum cruzi (obsolete)

Related Terms

• Chagas disease
• triatomine
• kinetoplast
• trypomastigote
• epimastigote
• amastigote
• vector-borne disease
• Zoonosis
• reservoir host

Usage Notes

Distinguished from Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness transmitted by tsetse flies via salivary inoculation; T. cruzi transmission is uniquely fecal-oral via triatomines. Strain typing (TcI–TcVI discrete typing units) affects pathogenesis and geographic distribution but is not reflected in the species name.