ISOLATION AND BIOCHEMICAL-CHARACTERIZATION OF THE COSTA OF TRITRICHOMONAS FETUS

The costae are cytoskeletal structures found in Trichomonadidae. Both the structural organization and composition of this organelle are stil l unknown. In the present work we have introduced a new methodology fo r the costa isolation. Using sucrose density-gradient centrifugation a n enriched costa fraction was obtained. Analyses by sodium dodecyl sul fate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that the cos ta contains several proteins, with major bands corresponding to appare nt molecular masses of 122, 115, 112, 93, 87, 82, 59, 52, 44, 41, 32, and 26 kDa. No significant amount of carbohydrates was detected in the costa fraction. The fractionation methodology described here has the advantage of using normal centrifugation methods and is being applied to trichomonas in the size range of Tritrichomonas foetus and Trichomo nas vaginalis.