Figure 6

T. vaginalis contact with VECs results in decreased tv44 transcription (A and C) and amounts of TV44 (B and D). A. Decreased amounts of tv44 RT-PCR products as evidenced by ethidium bromide-stained gels after electrophoresis in 1% agarose from trichomonads after contact with immortalized MS-74 VECs (lane 2) compared to parasites without contact to VECs (lane 1). The equal quantities of the α-tubulin (α-tub) RT-PCR products show equal amounts of RNA in the PCR reactions. B. Decreased amounts of TV44 detected by mAb 6B8 on immunoblots of total proteins of trichomonads after contact with VECs (lane 2) compared to control organisms (lane 1). Proteins for SDS-PAGE were from equal numbers of organisms as described in the legend of Figure 1C and D. The relative amounts of the tv44 gene RT-PCR product in stained agarose gels (A) and TV44 on immunoblots (B) were obtained by scanning the bands from parts A and B using the Scion image beta program. The amounts of PCR product and protein obtained from parasites without contact with VECs was normalized to 100% (bars1) for comparison with PCR product of organisms after contact with host cells (bars 2).