The Intracellular Amastigote of Trypanosoma cruzi Maintains an Actively Beating Flagellum.
Won MM, Krüger T, Engstler M, Burleigh BA.
mBio. 2023 Feb 22. e0355622. PMID: 36840555
Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases
Immunology and Infectious Diseases
Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Molecular Metabolism
Molecular Metabolism
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Barbara Burleigh holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Departments of Immunology and Infectious Diseases as well as the Department of Molecular Metabolism. After obtaining her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular parasitology from the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Burleigh trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Medicine, where she gained expertise in the cell biology of host-pathogen interactions.
As an obligate intracellular parasite that lives in the cytoplasm of its mammalian host cell, the Chagas' disease parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, forges functional connections with its host cell in order to survive. In other words, T. cruzi becomes part of an integrated biological system: the 'host-parasite network'. Research in my laboratory seeks to understand how T. cruzi exploits host functions to establish intracellular infection in mammalian cells. Our general approach has been to view this relationship through the lens of the mammalian host cell, where our studies have probed mechanisms of host cell entry by T. cruzi, identified cellular pathways that support intracellular replication of the parasite and have determined the impact of infection on host gene expression and physiology. In these efforts, we have exploited a combination of genomic, transcriptomic and cell biological approaches. With the advancement of genome-scale technologies, we are now in a position to integrate parasite and host gene expression data with host functional genomic data to expose biological networks representing metabolic cross talk between host and parasite. Our recent functional genomic studies, for example, indicate critical points in host metabolic networks to which T. cruzi parasites couple their metabolic needs. The role of host cellular metabolism in supporting T. cruzi infection is a new area of investigation in the Chagas' disease field that we are excited to develop with key collaborators. These studies will provide essential insights into the fundamental basis for T. cruzi parasitism, which has the potential to be leveraged in the development of novel therapeutics for Chagas' disease.
Current projects in the lab include the study of host fatty acid metabolism and its role in fueling T. cruzi replication in myoblasts and iPSC-derived human cardiomyocytes; the role of host cytoskeletal dynamics in supporting intracellular parasite growth; and the use of transcriptomic signatures (RNA-Seq) to predict metabolic and functional adaptation in T. cruzi developmental stages and across recent parasite isolates.
B.Sc., 1986, Microbiology
University of Western Ontario
Ph.D, 1992, Molecular and Cellular Parasitology
University of Western Ontario
Post-doctoral fellow, 1997, Host-pathogen interactions; parasitology; cell biology.
Yale University School of Medicine
Associate Research Scientist, 1999, Molecular Parasitology
Yale University School of Medicine
Won MM, Krüger T, Engstler M, Burleigh BA.
mBio. 2023 Feb 22. e0355622. PMID: 36840555
Won MM, Baublis A, Burleigh BA.
bioRxiv. 2023 Feb 22. PMID: 36824716
Dumoulin PC, Vollrath J, Won MM, Wang JX, Burleigh BA.
Front Microbiol. 2022. 13:937910. PMID: 35783434
Calzada JE, Samudio F, de Juncá C, Pineda V, Burleigh BA, Saldaña A.
Microorganisms. 2022 Jan 26. 10(2). PMID: 35208746
Burleigh B, McConville M.
Curr Opin Microbiol. 2021 12. 64:166-169. PMID: 34756536
Dumoulin PC, Burleigh BA.
Curr Opin Microbiol. 2021 10. 63:244-249. PMID: 34455305
Ferreira ER, Bonfim-Melo A, Burleigh BA, Costales JA, Tyler KM, Mortara RA.
mBio. 2021 06 29. 12(3):e0098821. PMID: 34154418
Talavera-López C, Messenger LA, Lewis MD, Yeo M, Reis-Cunha JL, Matos GM, Bartholomeu DC, Calzada JE, Saldaña A, Ramírez JD, Guhl F, Ocaña-Mayorga S, Costales JA, Gorchakov R, Jones K, Nolan MS, Teixeira SMR, Carrasco HJ, Bottazzi ME, Hotez PJ, Murray KO, Grijalva MJ, Burleigh B, Grisard EC, Miles MA, Andersson B.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2021. 11:614665. PMID: 33747978
Dumoulin PC, Vollrath J, Tomko SS, Wang JX, Burleigh B.
Elife. 2020 12 01. 9. PMID: 33258448
Oliveira AER, Pereira MCA, Belew AT, Ferreira LRP, Pereira LMN, Neves EGA, Nunes MDCP, Burleigh BA, Dutra WO, El-Sayed NM, Gazzinelli RT, Teixeira SMR.
PLoS Pathog. 2020 08. 16(8):e1008781. PMID: 32810179
[Fall 2015] Chagas’ disease afflicts an estimated 8 million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America—though that figure is believed to be low, due to underdiagnosis. Caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, or T. cruzi, the infection is carried…
April 30, 2014 — Barbara Burleigh, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases, studies Chagas disease, a leading cause of infectious heart failure. The disease is a major health and economic burden in Latin America, where it’s endemic,…