Information

 

Trichomonas vaginalis is a common sexually transmitted parasite that causes a self-limiting/mild genitourinary tract infection in humans. It is mostly asymptomatic both in women and men; but, non-specific symptoms such as fulminant vaginal discharge, itching and odor may be observed in women (Edwards et al., 2014). The parasite is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes (preterm birth and early membrane rupture) (Silver et al., 2014). In addition, T. vaginalis infection is associadted with increased rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission (Kissinger et al., 2013).

There is limited information on the molecular epidemiology of T. vaginalis, despite being one of the most common sexually transmitted pathogen. The use of polymorphic markers (microsatellite typing etc.) with high discriminatory value allow a better understanding of variation in T. vaginalis genotypes (Prokopi et al., 2011). Among the sequenced protozoans, T. vaginalis has the largest genome, 160 Mb in size and with almost 60.000 genes residing in six chromosomes. Almost 45% of its genome is composed of non-coding regions and genome duplication events have been uncovered recently (Woehle et al.,2014). The methodologies relying on microsatellites polymorphisms are widely used for detecting variation in eukaryote genomes.  

References

  • Edwards T, Burke P, Smalley H, Hobbs G. 2014. Trichomonas vaginalis: clinical relevance, pathogenicity and diagnosis. Crit Rev Microbiol 10:1–12.
  • Kissinger P, Adamski A. 2013. Trichomoniasis and HIV interactions: a review. Sexually transmitted infections. 89(6):426-433.               
  • Prokopi, M., Chatzitheodorou, T., Ackers, J. P., & Clark, C. G. (2011). A preliminary investigation of microsatellite-based genotyping in Trichomonas vaginalis. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 105(8), 479-481.                                     
  • Silver BJ, Guy RJ, Kaldor JM, Jamil MS, Rumbold AR. 2014. Trichomonas vaginalis as a cause of perinatal morbidity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sex Transm Dis. 41:369–376.                                                                                       
  • Woehle C, Kusdian G, Radine C, Graur D, Landan G, Gould SB. The parasite Trichomonas vaginalis expresses thousands of pseudogenes and long non-coding RNAs independently from functional neighbouring genes. BMC Genomics. 2014 Oct 17;15:906.