Derrick ROBINSON

Information

Scientific interests and projects

Introduction:
Trypanosoma brucei is the agent of human African trypanosomiasis and threatens millions of people in 40+ sub - Saharan countries. T. brucei belongs to the class Kinetoplastida, including other human pathogens; T.cruzi, (Chagas disease) and Leishmania sp (leishmaniasis disease). There are no vaccines for these diseases and treatment can be complex and toxic. Toxoplasma gondii is a protist that is a serious threat to the health of immunocompromised patients and pregnant women. Around 30% of the human population is chronically infected by the latent encysted form for which no treatment exist. It is transmitted by ingesting water, soil, vegetables, or anything contaminated with oocysts shed in the feces of an infected animal.

Scientific interests:
Research into the basic biology of these pathogens is needed to identify new diagnostic and therapeutic tools. All Eukaryotic organisms have a cytoskeleton. It consists of proteins that form the internal skeleton and is required for cell shape and polarity. It can be stable or dynamic and is essential in the differentiation from non-infective stages to infective stages. Parasite cytoskeletons have proteins that are common with their host, but importantly also novel important proteins.

Scientific activity within ParaFrap:
We are interested in the biology and pathogenicity of protists parasites. Building the cytoskeleton and characterizing novel cytoskeletal proteins as drug targets are our major interests. More specifically we are interested in how Trypanosomes, Leishmania and Toxoplasma parasites build their cytoskeletons what are the novel, minor but essential, proteins involved in cytoskeleton biogenesis and how can they be targeted and exploited for intervention. We have identified novel proteins (TbBILBO1, TbFPC4, TbFPC3) that are involved in flagellar pocket (FP) an organelle that is essential for exo-endocytosis and are characterizing how these proteins interact to form the annular structure that is the basis of the FP cytoskeleton. We are also working on identification of the components of the basal complex of Toxoplasma and their role in the machineries involved in parasite connection, constriction and cytokinesis.

Top 5 publications of last 5 years

1. Positional Dynamics and Glycosomal Recruitment of Developmental Regulators during Trypanosome Differentiation. Szöőr B, Simon DV, Rojas F, Young J, Robinson DR, Krüger T, Engstler M, Matthews KR. MBio. 2019 Jul 9;10(4). pii: e00875-19. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00875-19.

2. Mutations in CFAP43 and CFAP44 cause male infertility and flagellum defects in Trypanosoma and human. Charles Coutton, Alexandra Vargas, Amir Amiri-Yekta, Zine-Eddine Kherraf, Selima Fourati Ben Mustapha, Pauline Le Tanno, Clémentine Wambergue- Legrand Thomas Karaouzène, Guillaume Martinez, Serge Crouzy, Abbas Daneshipour, Seyedeh Hanieh Hosseini, Valérie Mitchell, Lazhar Halouani, Ouafi Marrakchi, Mounir Makni, Habib Latrous, Mahmoud Kharouf, Jean-François Deleuze, Anne Boland, Sylviane Hennebicq, Véronique Satre, Pierre-Simon Jouk, Nicolas Thierry-Mieg, Beatrice Conne, Nicolas Landrein, Denis Dacheux-Deschamps, Alain Schmitt, Laurence Stouvenel, Patrick Lorès, Elma El Khouri, Serge P. Bottari, Julien Fauré, Jean-Philippe Wolf, Karin, Jessica Escoffier, Hamid Gourabi, Derrick. R. Robinson, Serge Nef, Emmanuel Dulioust, Raoudha Zouari, Mélanie Bonhivers*, Aminata Touré*, Christophe Arnoult*, and Pierre F. Ray. (*Shared leadership). Nat Commun. 2018 Feb 15;9(1):686. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017- 02792-7.

3. Interaction between the Flagellar Pocket Collar and the Hook complex via a novel microtubule-binding protein in Trypanosoma brucei. Anna Albisetti, Célia Florimond, Nicolas Landrein Keni Vidilaseris, Marie Eggenspieler, Johannes Lesigang, Gang Dong, Derrick Roy Robinson, Mélanie Bonhivers, PLoS Pathog. 1;13(11):e1006710.  eCollection 2017 Nov. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006710.

4. BILBO1 is a scaffold protein of the flagellar pocket collar in the pathogen Trypanosoma brucei. Célia Florimond, Annelise Sahin, Keni Vidilaseris, Gang Dong, Nicolas Landrein, Denis Dacheux, Anna Albisetti, Edward. H. Byard, Mélanie Bonhivers and Derrick R. Robinson. PLoS Pathog. 2015 Mar 30;11(3):e1004654. 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004654

5. Human FAM154A (SAXO1) is a microtubule-stabilizing protein specific to cilia and related structures. Denis Dacheux, Benoit Roger, Christophe Bosc, Nicolas Landrein, Emmanuel Roche, Lucie Chansel, Thomas Trian, Annie Andrieux, Aline Papaxanthos-Roche, Roger Marthan, Derrick. R. Robinson, Mélanie Bonhivers. J Cell Sci. 2015 Apr 1;128(7):1294-307. Epub 2015 Feb 11. doi: 10.1242/jcs.155143.