Buzzing to have our manuscript accepted for publication in Biology Open.

Here is a quick summary of the work!

Trypanosoma theileri (T. theileri) is a parasite which infects cattle and is transmitted by tabanid flies. T. theileri does not harm its host and apparently avoids the host’s immune system via a group of proteins which coat the surface of the parasite cell. As the tabanid fly only intermittently feeds on cattle, it is possible that the protein-covered cell surface coat enables a longer infection time in cattle which would increase the chance of T. theileri being transmitted between cattle. Trypanosoma melophagium is closely related to T. theileri but infects sheep and is transmitted by the sheep ked, which resembles a tick but is actually a wingless fly. Keds spend their whole life attached to sheep, providing many opportunities to transmit T. melophagium. We compared the genetic components of T. theileri and T. melophagium to look at the genetic basis of their host and vector specificity. We found that T. melophagium appears to use a different protein cell surface coat to that used by T. theileri to evade the host immune system. We tentatively link this differential investment to the biology of the insect vectors (tabanid fly/ sheep ked) which spend vastly different lengths of time in contact with their mammalian hosts.