Host-Parasite Interactions of Cryptosporidium

Cryptosporidium is an obligate intracellular parasite that relies heavily on the host for survival. Upon invasion the parasite manipulates both metabolic and physiological properties of COLO-680N host cells. This project involved a combination of live cell imaging techniques and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to elucidate some of the key manipulations of the host cell resulting from cryptosporidial infection. Here we demonstrate with live cell imaging analysis that the parasite increases the recruitment of actin in infected COLO-680N cultures and that the parasite is localising host cell mitochondria to the site of infection, as well as increasing the mitochondrial membrane potential of infected cells. NMR metabolomics demonstrated that the parasite is potentially manipulating metabolic pathways in the host to create a compartmentalised fatty acid synthesis system to bypass normally the self- limiting fatty acid synthesis pathways of the host in the cytosol and mitochondria. Evidence potentially revealing mechanisms behind apoptosis regulation and osmotic imbalance responsible for the pathogenicity were also uncovered in this study.