Response to comment on 'Unexpected plasticity in the life cycle of Trypanosoma Brucei'

eLife

Markus Engstler¹  Jaime Lisack¹  Brooke Morriswood¹ 

[1] Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany;

关键词: parasite life cycle;    trypanosoma;    Tsetse fly;    Other;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.75922

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

We thank Keith Matthews and Stephen Larcombe for their thoughtful comment, which follows the good tradition of public scientific discourse (Matthews and Larcombe, 2022). While their remarks have prompted us to take another critical look at our data, we think that they neither alter our conclusions nor offer a practical alternative explanation. In essence, we see two possible interpretations of our experiments: either the trypanosome life cycle can accommodate a more flexible role for the slender stage, or the definition of the stumpy stage needs to be radically changed. While the first interpretation – which we favour – would not falsify any published work, the second one – which Matthews and Larcombe are proposing – would contradict the literature. Hence, we favour a model with an unexpected phenotypic plasticity for the slender stage and a certain degree of stochasticity in the trypanosome life cycle.

【 授权许可】

CC BY