NUCLEAR DISTRIBUTION OF PROTEINS IN SKELETAL MUSCLE FIBRE INVADED BY TRICHINELLA SPIRALIS

The nurse cell Trichinella spiralis complex has been a subject of research interest for many decades because of the tendency of the striated myofibre to respond to the needs of the invasive parasite without any effort to defend itself. This biological system is an excellent model to explore the broad and still unidentified adaptive capacities of the striated muscle tissue. In this work we demonstrate up-regulation of the two nuclear proteins poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) within the nuclei of the occupied portion of skeletal muscle fibre in the time course of its transformation towards a Nurse cell after invasion by T. spiralis. We also show that the process of transformation is associated with nuclear distribution of apoptosis inducing factor (AIF), Bc1-2 associated protein X (Bax), and caspase-3 that normally reside in other cellular compartments, and proteins of Trichinella origin. Apparently, Trichinella has the ability to regulate the intracellular systems, which is still not fully understood. The presented results open some new views concerning plasticity of skeletal muscle cells.