Structural and mechanistic insights into the function of Leishmania ribosome lacking a single pseudouridine modification.

Leishmania is the causative agent of cutaneous and visceral diseases affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Pseudouridine (Ψ), the most abundant modification on rRNA, changes during the parasite life cycle. Alterations in the level of a specific Ψ in helix 69 (H69) affected ribosome function.

Amphotericin B resistance correlates with increased fitness and in () .

Amphotericin B (AmpB) deoxycholate is the available first-line drug used to treat visceral leishmaniasis caused by () , however, some cases of AmpB treatment failure have been reported in Thailand. Resistance to drugs is known to affect parasite fitness with a potential impact on parasite transmission but still little is known about the effect of resistance to drugs on . Here we aimed to gain insight into the fitness changes occurring after treatment failure or -induced resistance to AmpB.

allelic selection during experimental sand fly infection correlates with mutational signatures of oxidative DNA damage.

Trypanosomatid pathogens are transmitted by blood-feeding insects, causing devastating human infections. These parasites show important phenotypic shifts that often impact parasite pathogenicity, tissue tropism, or drug susceptibility. The evolutionary mechanisms that allow for the selection of such adaptive phenotypes remain only poorly investigated.

Experimental evolution links post-transcriptional regulation to Leishmania fitness gain.

The protozoan parasite Leishmania donovani causes fatal human visceral leishmaniasis in absence of treatment. Genome instability has been recognized as a driver in Leishmania fitness gain in response to environmental change or chemotherapy. How genome instability generates beneficial phenotypes despite potential deleterious gene dosage effects is unknown.

Genome instability drives epistatic adaptation in the human pathogen .

How genome instability is harnessed for fitness gain despite its potential deleterious effects is largely elusive. An ideal system to address this important open question is provided by the protozoan pathogen , which exploits frequent variations in chromosome and gene copy number to regulate expression levels. Using ecological genomics and experimental evolution approaches, we provide evidence that adaptation relies on epistatic interactions between functionally associated gene copy number variations in pathways driving fitness gain in a given environment.

Comparative transcriptomic analysis of antimony resistant and susceptible Leishmania infantum lines.

Background: One of the major challenges to leishmaniasis treatment is the emergence of parasites resistant to antimony. To study differentially expressed genes associated with drug resistance, we performed a comparative transcriptomic analysis between wild-type and potassium antimonyl tartrate (Sb)-resistant Leishmania infantum lines using high-throughput RNA sequencing.

Methods: All the cDNA libraries were constructed from promastigote forms of each line, sequenced and analyzed using STAR for mapping the reads against the reference genome (L.

Dynamic imaging reveals surface exposure of virulent amastigotes during pyroptosis of infected macrophages.

spp. are obligate intracellular parasites that infect phagocytes, notably macrophages. No information is available on how parasites respond to pyroptosis of their host cell, which is known to limit microbial infection.

SILAC-based quantitative proteomics reveals pleiotropic, phenotypic modulation in primary murine macrophages infected with the protozoan pathogen Leishmania donovani.

Leishmaniases are major vector-borne tropical diseases responsible for great human morbidity and mortality, caused by protozoan, trypanosomatid parasites of the genus Leishmania. In the mammalian host, parasites survive and multiply within mononuclear phagocytes, especially macrophages. However, the underlying mechanisms by which Leishmania spp.

Genome Dynamics during Environmental Adaptation Reveal Strain-Specific Differences in Gene Copy Number Variation, Karyotype Instability, and Telomeric Amplification.

Protozoan parasites of the genus adapt to environmental change through chromosome and gene copy number variations. Only little is known about external or intrinsic factors that govern genomic adaptation. Here, by conducting longitudinal genome analyses of 10 new clinical isolates, we uncovered important differences in gene copy number among genetically highly related strains and revealed gain and loss of gene copies as potential drivers of long-term environmental adaptation in the field.

Reverse Epidemiology: An Experimental Framework to Drive Biomarker Discovery by Functional Genetic Screening Using Relevant Animal Models.

biomarker discovery remains an important challenge that needs to be revisited in light of our increasing knowledge on parasite-specific biology, notably its genome instability. In the absence of classical transcriptional regulation in these early-branching eukaryotes, fluctuations in transcript abundance can be generated by gene and chromosome amplifications, which have been linked to parasite phenotypic variability with respect to virulence, tissue tropism, and drug resistance. Conducting evolutionary experiments to study mechanisms of environmental adaptation, we recently validated the link between parasite genetic amplification and fitness gain, thus defining gene and chromosome copy number variations (CNVs) as important biomarkers.

Stage-specific expression of the proline-alanine transporter in the human pathogen Leishmania.

Leishmania are obligatory intracellular parasites that cycle between the sand fly midgut (extracellular promastigotes) and mammalian macrophage phagolysosomes (intracellular amastigotes). They have developed mechanisms of adaptation to the distinct environments of host and vector that favor utilization of both proline and alanine. LdAAP24 is the L.

Haplotype selection as an adaptive mechanism in the protozoan pathogen Leishmania donovani.

The parasite Leishmania  donovani causes a fatal disease termed visceral leishmaniasis. The process through which the parasite adapts to environmental change remains largely unknown. Here we show that aneuploidy is integral for parasite adaptation and that karyotypic fluctuations allow for selection of beneficial haplotypes, which impact transcriptomic output and correlate with phenotypic variations in proliferation and infectivity.

New insights into experimental visceral leishmaniasis: Real-time in vivo imaging of Leishmania donovani virulence.

Unlabelled: Visceral leishmaniasis is an insidious neglected disease with worldwide distribution. It is caused by parasites from the Leishmania donovani complex, which are able to be transmitted by different species of phlebotomine sand flies and to infect numerous mammal hosts. Despite the high number of people infected or at risk, and the remarkable quantity of studies focusing on this disease, a proper experimental model to efficiently decipher the infectious process of visceral leishmaniasis taking into account the nuances of parasite’s virulence and the duration of the infection is still lacking.

Modulation of Aneuploidy in during Adaptation to Different and Environments and Its Impact on Gene Expression.

Aneuploidy is usually deleterious in multicellular organisms but appears to be tolerated and potentially beneficial in unicellular organisms, including pathogens. , a major protozoan parasite, is emerging as a new model for aneuploidy, since -cultivated strains are highly aneuploid, with interstrain diversity and intrastrain mosaicism. The alternation of two life stages in different environments (extracellular promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes) offers a unique opportunity to study the impact of environment on aneuploidy and gene expression.

Phenotypic Characterization of a Leishmania donovani Cyclophilin 40 Null Mutant.

Protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania adapt to their arthropod and vertebrate hosts through the development of defined life cycle stages. Stage differentiation is triggered by environmental stress factors and has been linked to parasite chaperone activities. Using a null mutant approach we previously revealed important, nonredundant functions of the cochaperone cyclophilin 40 in L.

Phosphoproteomic analysis of wild-type and antimony-resistant Leishmania braziliensis lines by 2D-DIGE technology.

Protein phosphorylation is one of the most studied post-translational modifications that is involved in different cellular events in Leishmania. In this study, we performed a comparative phosphoproteomics analysis of potassium antimonyl tartrate (SbIII)-resistant and -susceptible lines of Leishmania braziliensis using a 2D-DIGE approach followed by MS. In order to investigate the differential phosphoprotein abundance associated with the drug-induced stress response and SbIII-resistance mechanisms, we compared nontreated and SbIII-treated samples of each line.

Probing druggability and biological function of essential proteins in Leishmania combining facilitated null mutant and plasmid shuffle analyses.

Leishmania parasites cause important human morbidity and mortality. Essential Leishmania genes escape genetic assessment by loss-of-function analyses due to lethal null mutant phenotypes, even though these genes and their products are biologically most significant and represent validated drug targets. Here we overcome this limitation using a facilitated null mutant approach applied for the functional genetic analysis of the MAP kinase LmaMPK4.

The Leishmania donovani chaperone cyclophilin 40 is essential for intracellular infection independent of its stage-specific phosphorylation status.

During its life cycle, the protozoan pathogen Leishmania donovani is exposed to contrasting environments inside insect vector and vertebrate host, to which the parasite must adapt for extra- and intracellular survival. Combining null mutant analysis with phosphorylation site-specific mutagenesis and functional complementation we genetically tested the requirement of the L. donovani chaperone cyclophilin 40 (LdCyP40) for infection.

Imaging host cell-Leishmania interaction dynamics implicates parasite motility, lysosome recruitment, and host cell wounding in the infection process.

Leishmania donovani causes human visceral leishmaniasis. The parasite infectious cycle comprises extracellular flagellated promastigotes that proliferate inside the insect vector, and intracellular nonmotile amastigotes that multiply within infected host cells. Using primary macrophages infected with virulent metacyclic promastigotes and high spatiotemporal resolution microscopy, we dissect the dynamics of the early infection process.

Quantitative proteome profiling informs on phenotypic traits that adapt Leishmania donovani for axenic and intracellular proliferation.

Protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania are important human pathogens that differentiate inside host macrophages into an amastigote life cycle stage. Although this stage causes the pathogenesis of leishmaniasis, only few proteins have been implicated in amastigote intracellular survival. Here we compare morphology, infectivity and protein expression of L.

Identification of Leishmania-specific protein phosphorylation sites by LC-ESI-MS/MS and comparative genomics analyses.

Human pathogenic protozoa of the genus Leishmania undergo various developmental transitions during the infectious cycle that are triggered by changes in the host environment. How these parasites sense, transduce, and respond to these signals is only poorly understood. Here we used phosphoproteomic approaches to monitor signaling events in L.

Leishmania major MPK7 protein kinase activity inhibits intracellular growth of the pathogenic amastigote stage.

During the infectious cycle, protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania undergo several adaptive differentiation steps that are induced by environmental factors and crucial for parasite infectivity. Genetic analyses of signaling proteins underlying Leishmania stage differentiation are often rendered difficult due to lethal null mutant phenotypes. Here we used a transgenic strategy to gain insight into the functions of the mitogen-activated Leishmania major protein kinases LmaMPK7 and LmaMPK10 in parasite virulence.

A dynamic map of antigen recognition by CD4 T cells at the site of Leishmania major infection.

CD4 T helper cells play a central role in the control of infection by intracellular parasites. How efficiently pathogen-specific CD4 T cells detect infected cells in vivo is unclear. Here, we employed intravital two-photon imaging to examine the behavior of pathogen-specific CD4 T cells at the site of Leishmania major infection.