2024/11/07 by Isabel Iturrieta-Gonzalez, Isabel Iturrieta-González, Pamela Olivares-Ferretti +6
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Immunology and Microbiology · #Coccidia and coccidiosis research #Parasitic Infections and Diagnostics #Reproductive tract infections research
paper · pdf · doi:10.14411/fp.2024.021
crossref issued 2024/11/07 · crossref published 2024/11/07 · crossref published-online 2024/11/07 · openalex publication_date 2024/11/07 · crossref created 2024/11/08 · crossref deposited 2024/11/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Trichomoniasis, a globally distributed sexually transmitted infection, is caused by the urogenital parasite Trichomonas vaginalis Donné, 1836 affecting both women and men. The treatment of choice is metronidazole (MTZ). In the present study, 15 samples of vaginal discharge and urine were analysed by sequencing nitroreductase genes (ntr4 and ntr6). An in silico model was structured to illustrate the location of point mutations (PM) in the protein. The ntr4 gene presented four PMs: G76C (10/10), C213G (9/10), C318A (5/10) and G424A (1/10), while the ntr6 gene had eight PMs; G593A (13/13) the most frequent, G72T and G627C, both in 8/13. The PM C213G and A438T generated a stop codon causing a truncated nitroreductase 4 and 6 protein. Docking analysis demonstrated that some models had a decrease in binding affinity to MTZ (p < 0.0001). A high frequency of mutations was observed in the samples analysed that could be associated with resistance to MTZ in Chile.