# Elucidating tissue specific requirements for - and responses to - a chronic T. gondii infection

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA HLTH SCIENCES CTR · 2024 · $279,246

## Abstract

More than 30% of the world’s population harbors a chronic parasitic infection that cannot be eliminated with 
current treatments. While chronic infection with Toxoplasma gondii has typically been considered asymptomatic 
growing evidence suggests that the parasite can have long term consequences to human health, including 
increased risk of neurological disorders and muscular dysfunction. The presence of T. gondii cysts within organs 
including the brain, eyes, heart and skeletal muscles likely underpin these pathologies. The long-term goal of 
this work is to identify novel therapeutics to eliminate all the cysts in a chronically infected host. However, very 
little is known about T. gondii cysts outside the brain and how they are able survive within these diverse tissues. 
The goal of this project is to better understand how the parasite survives within these tissues and how the host 
responds to their presence to identify a core set of proteins likely essential for survival within all clinically relevant 
tissues. This will allow us to strategically pursue targets able to eliminate cysts throughout the host not just a 
subset. We will use single cell transcriptional profiling of parasites isolated from different tissues and spatial 
transcriptomics of these tissues to achieve this goal. Finally, we will tests a set of proteins known to be important 
for cyst formation in vitro and/or in the brains of mice for their essentiality in cyst development and maintenance 
across all chronically infected tissues. Combined these data will provide (1) valuable, specific, candidates that 
are required for chronic parasite survival and (2) proof of concept for methods to tests the candidates for their 
function in vitro. This will be used to support an R01 grant application to identify specific vulnerabilities of the 
cysts that could be exploited in drug intervention strategies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11061658
- **Project number:** 5P20GM134973-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA HLTH SCIENCES CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Robyn Stacey Kent
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $279,246
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2024-02-01 → 2025-08-19

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11061658

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11061658, Elucidating tissue specific requirements for - and responses to - a chronic T. gondii infection (5P20GM134973-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11061658. Licensed CC0.

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