Abstract 2512 The Effect of HDAC Inhibitors on Giardia lamblia VSP Gene Expression Using Ribosome Profiling

Giardia lamblia is a protozoan parasite that causes the gastrointestinal disease giardiasis in humans. Giardia has an adaptive survival mechanism which it uses to evade the specific immune response of its host. It uses antigenic variation of its surface protein which allows it to express one of approximately 200 possible Variant Surface Proteins (VSPs) at any one time. In this project we are exploring the hypothesis that epigenetic mechanisms are playing a role in VSP switching, and that different classes of histone deacetylases (HDACs) regulate the expression of these VSP variants.