RNA-seq of Leishmania mexicana promastigotes, axenic amastigotes and intracellular amastigotes
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ABSTRACT: We used Illumina sequencing of poly-A selected RNA of Leishmania mexicana (WHO strain MNYC/BZ/62/M379) culture-adapted promastigotes (PRO), axenic amastigotes (AXA) and intracellular amastigotes (AMA) in mouse bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM), 24h after infection, to map 5' and 3' ends of Leishmania transcripts and determine transcript abundances. The AMA samples were prepared from total RNA of infected macrophages thus containing a mixture of leishmanial and murine RNA transcripts. We also sequenced poly-A selected RNA from uninfected BMDMs. Three biological replicates per sample.
Project description:To determine the modulation of gene expression of Leishmania mexicana(M379)-inoculated BALB/c ears in the presence of promastigote secretory gel (PSG) A genome-wide transcriptional analysis was performed by comparing the gene expression profiles of Leishmania mexicana- inoculated BALB/c ears and Leishmania mexicana plus PSG BALB/c ears. Leishmania mexicana amastigotes were purified from mouse cutaneous lesions and transformed in vitro in metacycic promastigotes (MT). After 6, 24 and 48 hours, ears were collected and processed for RNA extraction. Three Biological replicates per condition were run.
Project description:Leishmaniasis is an antropozoonosis caused by Leishmania parasites that affects around 12 million people in 98 different countries. The disease has different clinical forms, which depend mainly on the parasite genetics and on the immunologic status of the host. The promastigote form of the parasite is transmitted by an infected female phlebotomine sand fly, is internalized by phagocytic cells, mainly macrophages, and converts into amastigotes which replicate inside these cells. Macrophages are important cells of the immune system, capable of efficiently killing intracellular pathogens. However, Leishmania, can evade these mechanisms due to expression of virulence factors. Different strains of the same Leishmania species may have different infectivity and metastatic phenotypes in vivo. In the present work, we show that parasites from LV79 and PH8 strains have different lesion development in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mouse strains. The comparison of the proteomes of lesion-derived amastigotes from the two strains identified proteins such as CPx, SOD, HSP70 and GP63 as differentially expressed. The expression profile of all proteins and of the differentially expressed ones precisely classified PH8 and LV79 samples, indicating that the two strains are highly divergent and that protein expression correlate with their phenotypes.
Project description:Among the most central questions in Leishmania research is why some species remain in the skin dermis at the site of infection by the sand fly vector whereas other species migrate to visceral organs where they cause fatal visceral leishmaniasis. Although L. donovani is the species typically responsible for visceral leishmaniasis, an atypical L. donovani strain is the etiologic agent for cutaneous leishmaniasis in Sri Lanka. To identify molecular determinants for visceral disease, we have analysed the phenotype and genotype of two L. donovani clinical isolates from Sri Lanka where one isolate was derived from a cutaneous leishmaniasis patient (CL) and the other from a visceral leishmaniasis patient (VL). These isolates cause dramatically different pathology when introduced into mice; notably the CL isolate has lost the ability to survive in visceral organs while the VL isolate was highly virulent in visceral organs of BALB/c mice. Whole genome sequencing of the CL and VL isolates revealed that these genomes were very similar as there were no gene deletions and few individual gene amplifications. Indels resulting in frame shifts and loss/gain of stop codons resulted in 13 distinct pseudogenes present in each of the CL and VL isolates. There were 154 non-synonymous SNPs specific to the CL isolate and 193 non-synonymous SNPs specific to the VL isolate. Genome wide gene expression analysis revealed several transcript level differences, including the A2 virulence gene resulting in higher expression of A2 proteins in the VL isolate than in the CL isolate. Genotypic variations relevant to pathology and tropism in Leishmania can be interrogated by reverse genetics. Experimentally increasing A2 expression in the CL isolate through gene transfer significantly increased itM-bM-^@M-^Ys ability to survive in the spleen of BALB/c mice and conversely, down-regulating A2 expression in the VL isolate abrogated attenuated its survival in BALB/c mice. These observations reveal that there are relatively few genetic differences between the CL and VL isolates apart from the A2 genes, but collectively these have profound effects on human disease and experimentally infected mice. 6 Samples in total, 3 each from VL and CL causing isolates were analyzed by Splice Leader RNASeq. These three samples from each of the isolates were grown to form one of the following three lifestages, Promastigotes, Macrophage derived Amastigotes, Axenic Amastigotes.
Project description:Abstract Protozoa of the genus Leishmania are the causative agents of leishmaniasis in humans. These parasites cycle between promastigotes in the sand fly mid-gut and amastigotes in phagolysosome of mammalian macrophages. During infection, they up-regulate host nitric oxide synthase and arginase expression, both of which use arginine as a substrate. These elevated activities deplete macrophage arginine pools, a situation that invading Leishmania must overcome since it is an essential amino acid. Leishmania donovani imports exogenous arginine via a mono-specific amino acid transporter (AAP3) and utilizes it primarily through the polyamine pathway to provide precursors for trypanothione biosynthesis. Here we report the discovery of a pathway whereby promastigote and amastigote forms of the Leishmania sense the lack of environmental arginine and respond with rapid up-regulation in AAP3 expression and activity, as well as several other transporters. Significantly, this arginine deprivation response is also activated in parasites during macrophage infection. Phosphoproteomic analyses of L. donovani promastigotes have implicated a mitogen activated protein kinase 2 (MPK2)-mediated signaling cascade in this response and L. mexicana mutants lacking MPK2 are unable to respond to arginine deprivation. In addition, these mutants cannot differentiate into amastigotes in axenic culture or in peritoneal macrophages, and fail to establish an infection in mice. We propose that sensing arginine levels plays a critical role in Leishmania virulence by activating a rapid metabolic reaction for salvaging this amino acid in response to the lower arginine concentration in the macrophage phagolysosome.
Project description:Abstract Protozoa of the genus Leishmania are the causative agents of leishmaniasis in humans. These parasites cycle between promastigotes in the sand fly mid-gut and amastigotes in phagolysosome of mammalian macrophages. During infection, they up-regulate host nitric oxide synthase and arginase expression, both of which use arginine as a substrate. These elevated activities deplete macrophage arginine pools, a situation that invading Leishmania must overcome since it is an essential amino acid. Leishmania donovani imports exogenous arginine via a mono-specific amino acid transporter (AAP3) and utilizes it primarily through the polyamine pathway to provide precursors for trypanothione biosynthesis. Here we report the discovery of a pathway whereby promastigote and amastigote forms of the Leishmania sense the lack of environmental arginine and respond with rapid up-regulation in AAP3 expression and activity, as well as several other transporters. Significantly, this arginine deprivation response is also activated in parasites during macrophage infection. Phosphoproteomic analyses of L. donovani promastigotes have implicated a mitogen activated protein kinase 2 (MPK2)-mediated signaling cascade in this response and L. mexicana mutants lacking MPK2 are unable to respond to arginine deprivation. In addition, these mutants cannot differentiate into amastigotes in axenic culture or in peritoneal macrophages, and fail to establish an infection in mice. We propose that sensing arginine levels plays a critical role in Leishmania virulence by activating a rapid metabolic reaction for salvaging this amino acid in response to the lower arginine concentration in the macrophage phagolysosome.
Project description:Protozoa of the genus Leishmania are the causative agents of leishmaniasis in humans. These parasites cycle between promastigotes in the sand fly mid-gut and amastigotes in phagolysosome of mammalian macrophages. During infection, host up-regulate nitric oxide synthase and parasite induce host arginase expression, both of which use arginine as a substrate. These elevated activities deplete macrophage arginine pools, a situation that invading Leishmania must overcome since it is an essential amino acid. Leishmania donovani imports exogenous arginine via a mono-specific amino acid transporter (AAP3) and utilizes it primarily through the polyamine pathway to provide precursors for trypanothione biosynthesis. Here we report the discovery of a pathway whereby promastigote and amastigote forms of the Leishmania sense the lack of environmental arginine and respond with rapid up-regulation in AAP3 expression and activity, as well as several other transporters. Significantly, this arginine deprivation response is also activated in parasites during macrophage infection. Phosphoproteomic analyses of L. donovani promastigotes have implicated a Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase 2 (MPK2)-mediated signaling cascade in this response and L. mexicana mutants lacking MPK2 are unable to respond to arginine deprivation. In this study, we established that Leishmania cells sense the absence of arginine in their environment; both in culture (axenic promastigotes and amastigotes) and in macrophages during infection (amastigotes). This study describes the first amino acid deprivation sensing mechanism and the pathway that transduce this response, and reveals a novel host-pathogen metabolic interplay. Total RNA from Ten Leishmania donovani samples were analyzed using RNA-Seq. Cells from two life stages (promastigotes and amastigotes) were grown in axenic culture in the presence and absense of arginine. For each condition two biological replicates were grown and analyzed. In addition two macrophage grown amastigotes were analyzed.
Project description:Previous studies in Leishmania mexicana have identified the cytoskeletal protein KHARON as being important for both flagellar trafficking of the glucose transporter GT1 and for successful cytokinesis and survival of infectious amastigote forms inside mammalian macrophages. KHARON is located in three distinct regions of the cytoskeleton: the base of the flagellum, the subpellicular microtubules, and the mitotic spindle. To deconvolve the different functions for KHARON, we have identified two partner proteins, KHAP1 and KHAP2, that associate with KHARON. KHAP1 is located only in the subpellicular microtubules, while KHAP2 is located at the subpellicular microtubules and the base of the flagellum. Both the KHAP1 and KHAP2 null mutants are unable to execute cytokinesis but are able to traffic GT1 to the flagellum. These results confirm that KHARON assembles into distinct functional complexes and that the subpellicular complex is essential for cytokinesis and viability of disease-causing amastigotes but not for flagellar membrane trafficking.
Project description:Previous studies in Leishmania mexicana have identified the cytoskeletal protein KHARON as being important for both flagellar trafficking of the glucose transporter GT1 and for successful cytokinesis and survival of infectious amastigote forms inside mammalian macrophages. KHARON is located in three distinct regions of the cytoskeleton: the base of the flagellum, the subpellicular microtubules, and the mitotic spindle. To deconvolve the different functions for KHARON, we have identified two partner proteins, KHAP1 and KHAP2, that associate with KHARON. KHAP1 is located only in the subpellicular microtubules, while KHAP2 is located at the subpellicular microtubules and the base of the flagellum. Both the KHAP1 and KHAP2 null mutants are unable to execute cytokinesis but are able to traffic GT1 to the flagellum. These results confirm that KHARON assembles into distinct functional complexes and that the subpellicular complex is essential for cytokinesis and viability of disease-causing amastigotes but not for flagellar membrane trafficking.
Project description:During its life cycle Leishmania undergoes extreme environmental changes, alternating between insect vectors and vertebrate hosts. In mammals the parasites replicate within parasitophorous vacuoles of macrophages, compartments that contain low concentrations of iron. Here we show that stimulation of iron transport, which is induced in Leishmania amazonensis by an iron-poor environment, triggers the differentiation of avirulent promastigotes into virulent amastigotes. Iron depletion from the culture medium triggered expression of the LIT1 ferrous iron transporter, growth arrest, and differentiation of wild type promastigotes into infective amastigotes. In contrast, LIT1 null promastigotes showed continued exponential growth in iron-poor media, followed by massive cell death. Iron depletion from the medium and LIT1 upregulation increased iron superoxide dismutase activity (FeSOD) in wild type, but not in LIT1 null parasites. Notably, the superoxide-generating drug menadione or H2O2 were sufficient to trigger differentiation of wild type promastigotes into fully infective amastigotes. On the other hand, LIT1 null promastigotes accumulated superoxide radical and initiated amastigote differentiation after exposure to H2O2, but not to menadione. Our results reveal a novel role for FeSOD activity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in orchestrating the differentiation of Leishmania infective stages, in a process regulated by iron availability. Four samples were obtained in total from wild-type L. amazonensis promastigotes grown for 24 hours in culture. Two of these samples derived from medium with iron and two from mediam without iron.These two samples derived from each culture served as biological replicates.
Project description:In mammals, resident dermal macrophages (MΦs) are subverted by Leishmania (L.) amazonensis amastigotes as host cells permissive for parasite multiplication. These Leishmania are living within a communal parasitophorous vacuole (PV) and are expected to trigger unique MΦ transcriptional signatures. We performed a transcription profiling of mouse MΦs harboring amastigotes to get insights into their reprogramming as host cells for parasite multiplication. BALB/c mouse bone marrow-derived MΦs were either loaded or not with four amastigotes on average. Twenty four hours later, when amastigotes multiply, total RNA from MΦ cultures was prepared, amplified and hybridized onto Affymetrix Mouse430_2 GeneChips®. The outcome recorded a total of 1,248 probe-sets showing significant differential expression. Comparable fold-change values for a handful of genes were obtained between Affymetrix technology and the more sensitive RTqPCR method. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software® pinpointed the up-regulation of the sterol biosynthesis pathway (P-value = 1.31e-02) involving several genes (1.95 to 4.30 fold-change values), and the modulation of various genes involved in polyamine synthesis and in pro/counter-inflammatory signaling. Our findings suggest that amastigotes exploit the MΦ lipid and polyamine pathways to multiply efficiently, and induce a counter-inflammatory environment to expand their dermis niche. Experiment Overall Design: Mice, MΦs and amastigotes: Experiment Overall Design: Swiss nu/nu and BALB/c mice were used (following National Scientific Ethics Committee guidelines) for L. amazonensis (LV79 strain, MPRO/BR/1972/M1841) amastigote propagation and to prepare bone marrow-derived MΦs, respectively. Amastigotes were added at a multiplicity of 4 amastigotes per MΦ. Parasite-harboring MΦs (>98%; samples I1, I2 and I3) and parasite-free ones (samples UI1, UI2 and UI3) were cultured at 34°C (LV79 permissive temperature) for 24h. Experiment Overall Design: Real-time quantitative PCR: Experiment Overall Design: Total RNA from various biological samples including those used for hybridization experiments were reverse transcribed into cDNA using random hexamers (Roche Diagnostics) and Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus Reverse Transcriptase (Invitrogen Life Technologies). RTqPCR was performed using LightCycler-480 system (Roche) with primers designed with LightCycler Probe Design 1.0 software.Target genes primer sequences, amplicon melting temperatures and amplification efficiencies are available upon request. Gene expression analysis using qBase program allowed determining the normalized relative quantities between parasite-free and parasite-harboring MΦs.