• Karla Dias Cruz, Thayana Araújo Cruz, Gabriela Veras de Moraes, Tatiana Christina Paredes-Santos, Marcia Attias, and Wanderley de Souza.
• Laboratório de Ultraestrutura Celular Hertha Meyer, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 21941-902 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
• Biomed Res Int. 2014 Jan 1;2014:687835.

AbstractThe intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii can penetrate any warm-blooded animal cell. Conserved molecular assemblies of host cell plasma membranes should be involved in the parasite-host cell recognition. Lipid rafts are well-conserved membrane microdomains that contain high concentrations of cholesterol, sphingolipids, glycosylphosphatidylinositol, GPI-anchored proteins, and dually acylated proteins such as members of the Src family of tyrosine kinases. Disturbing lipid rafts of mouse peritoneal macrophages and epithelial cells of the lineage LLC-MK2 with methyl-beta cyclodextrin (M β CD) and filipin, which interfere with cholesterol or lidocaine, significantly inhibited internalization of T. gondii in both cell types, although adhesion remained unaffected in macrophages and decreased only in LLC-MK2 cells. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy confirmed these observations. Results are discussed in terms of the original role of macrophages as professional phagocytes versus the LLC-MK2 cell lineage originated from kidney epithelial cells.

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