Characterization of an Atypical eIF4E Ortholog in , LeishIF4E-6.

parasites are digenetic protists that shuffle between sand fly vectors and mammalian hosts, transforming from flagellated extracellular promastigotes that reside within the intestinal tract of female sand flies to the obligatory intracellular and non-motile amastigotes within mammalian macrophages. Stage differentiation is regulated mainly by post-transcriptional mechanisms, including translation regulation. parasites encode six different cap-binding proteins, LeishIF4E1-6, that show poor conservation with their counterparts from higher eukaryotes and among themselves.