Dr. Chunlei Su

See Also: Curriculum Vitae

Major Research Interests

My laboratory is interested in the mechanisms of virulence and population genetics of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii is an apicomplexan parasite related to the causative agents of malaria (Plasmodium spp) and coccidiosis (Eimeria spp). It parasitizes most vertebrates including mammals and birds. In some geographic regions up to 80% of the human population is chronically infected. Toxoplasma has emerged as a major opportunistic pathogen in immunodeficient patients (AIDS, cancer chemotherapy and organ transplant). It also causes congenital defects in humans. The majority of T. gondii isolates from a variety of human and animal sources have been genotyped into three highly clonal but closely related lineages. The three clonal lineages are distributed worldwide without showing geographic boundaries. The low occurrence of nucleotide differences (less than 2%) among these lineages and their unusual dimorphic allelic composition suggest that they have arisen from a recent common ancestry. However, the three lineages have strikingly different virulence phenotypes in mice. Type I strains are uniformly lethal in mice with LD100=1; in contrast, type II and III strains are significantly less virulent with LD100 >= 103. Importantly, type I strains occur with higher frequency in human congenital and ocular toxoplasmosis. In my lab, we try to understand the mechanisms of virulence and to elucidate the evolutionary history of this important parasitic pathogen.

Dr. Chunlei Su

Associate Professor
Ph. D., 1999
Penn State University

M409 Walters Life Sciences
Knoxville, TN 37996-0845

Phone: 865-974-4015
Fax: 865-974-4007
Email: csu1@utk.edu