A computational pipeline for diagnostic biomarker discovery in the human pathogen Trypanosoma cruzi

Background The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas’ disease, endemic in 18 countries in Central and South America. Transmission also occurs in non-endemic countries by way of blood transfusion and organ transplantation. Diagnosis of American trypanosomiasis is based on the detection of antibodies directed against T. cruzi antigens. In this work we mined the T. cruzi genome sequence to identify new peptidic diagnostic biomarkers.