Leptomonas seymouri: Adaptations to the Dixenous Life Cycle Analyzed by Genome Sequencing, Transcriptome Profiling and Co-infection with Leishmania donovani

PLoS Pathogens

Fred Opperdoes¹  Petr Volf²  Jan Votýpka²  Danyil Grybchuk²  Pavel Flegontov²  Jana Hlaváčová²  Vyacheslav Yurchenko³  Anzhelika Butenko³  Alexei Kostygov³  Tereza Leštinová³  Natalya Kraeva³  Jitka Myškova⁴  Julius Lukeš⁵ 

[1]Biology Centre, Institute of Parasitology, Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice (Budweis), Czech Republic

[2]Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

[3]Life Science Research Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

[4]Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

[5]de Duve Institute and Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium

关键词: Leishmania;    Leishmania donovani;    Trypanosoma;    S;    flies;    Parasitic diseases;    Vertebrates;    Macrophages;    Co-infections;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1005127

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

The co-infection cases involving dixenous Leishmania spp. (mostly of the L. donovani complex) and presumably monoxenous trypanosomatids in immunocompromised mammalian hosts including humans are well documented. The main opportunistic parasite has been identified as Leptomonas seymouri of the sub-family Leishmaniinae. The molecular mechanisms allowing a parasite of insects to withstand elevated temperature and substantially different conditions of vertebrate tissues are not understood. Here we demonstrate that L. seymouri is well adapted for the environment of the warm-blooded host. We sequenced the genome and compared the whole transcriptome profiles of this species cultivated at low and high temperatures (mimicking the vector and the vertebrate host, respectively) and identified genes and pathways differentially expressed under these experimental conditions. Moreover, Leptomonas seymouri was found to persist for several days in two species of Phlebotomus spp. implicated in Leishmania donovani transmission. Despite of all these adaptations, L. seymouri remains a predominantly monoxenous species not capable of infecting vertebrate cells under normal conditions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY