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

Figure 9

Atomic force microscopy analysis of the isolated kDNA network of epimastigote (a, b) and trypomastigote (c, d) of T. cruzi. The kDNA is composed of a massive network of interlocked DNA molecules. The kDNA molecules are uniformly distributed in epimastigote (a, b) while in trypomastigote (c, d) several foci containing high concentrations of kDNA fibrils were observed (d, arrows). The scale bars correspond to 1 μm (a), 2 μm (c), or 0.5 μm (b, d). Figures adapted from [22].

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