The Kinetoplast of Trypanosomatids: From Early Studies of Electron Microscopy to Recent Advances in Atomic Force Microscopy

Figure 4

Electron microscopy images of kinetoplast from the parasitic protozoan T. cruzi. The kinetoplast of epimastigote form is a disk-like structure containing densely packed DNA fibers (a). When the parasite differentiates and turns into a trypomastigote, an increase in the relative volume of the kinetoplast can be observed, as well as the change in the kDNA topology (b, c). In trypomastigotes, the kDNA fibers are loosely arranged into a globular structure and can be organized in well-defined multilayers (b) or in an irregular arrangement without identifiable layers (c). k = kinetoplast. The scale bar corresponds to 0.5 μm.

(a)

(b)

(c)