Abstract
Trypanosoma congolense is a major contributor to the vast socioeconomic devastation in sub-Saharan Africa caused by animal African trypanosomiasis. These protozoan parasites are transmitted between mammalian hosts by tsetse-fly vectors. A lack of understanding of the molecular basis of tsetse-trypanosome interactions stands as a barrier to the development of improved control strategies. Recently, a stage-specific T. congolense protein, T. congolense insect-stage surface antigen (TcCISSA), was identified that shows considerable sequence identity (>60%) to a previously identified T. brucei insect-stage surface molecule that plays a role in the maturation of infections. TcCISSA has multiple di-amino-acid and tri-amino-acid repeats in its extracellular domain, making it an especially interesting structure-function target. The predicted mature extracellular domain of TcCISSA was produced by recombinant DNA techniques, purified from Escherichia coli, crystallized and subjected to X-ray diffraction analysis; the data were processed to 2.7 Å resolution.