Scrutinized lipid utilization disrupts Amphotericin-B responsiveness in clinical isolates of <i>Leishmania donovani</i>.

ABSTRACT: The management of Leishmania donovani (LD), responsible for fatal visceral leishmaniasis (VL), faces increasing challenges due to rising drug unresponsiveness, leading to increasing treatment failures. While hypolipidemia characterizes VL, LD, a cholesterol auxotroph, relies on host lipid scavenging for its intracellular survival. The aggressive pathology, in terms of increased organ parasite load, observed in hosts infected with antimony-unresponsive-LD (LD-R) as compared to their sensitive counterparts (LD-S), highlights LD-R's heightened reliance on host lipids. Here, we report that LD-R-infection in mice promotes fluid-phase endocytosis in the host macrophages, selectively accumulating neutral lipids while excluding oxidized-low-density lipoprotein (LDL). LD-R enhances the fusio

SUBMITTER: Pradhan S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12113272 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature