Three types of Leishmania mexicana amastigotes: proteome comparison by quantitative proteomic analysis
Abstract
Leishmaniases are parasitic diseases caused by unicellular parasites of the genus Leishmania which manifest by forms ranging from self-healing skin lesion to life-threatening visceralizing disease. There is no effective vaccine and efficiency of current drug treatment is limited. For studying the mammalian stage of Leishmania-amastigotes, in addition to isolation of parasites from skin lesion of infected mice, two alternative methods were developed: axenic cultivation and isolation from in vitro infected macrophages.
We provide comprehensive quantitative proteomic analysis revealing variations among three available amastigote types, focusing on proteins involved in major metabolic pathways and in virulence. We conclude that expression of most metabolic pathways and virulence factors typical for amastigote stage was upregulated in lesion-derived amastigotes and downregulated in axenic amastigotes. This study shows the differences that need to be considered when using alternative amastigotes for experiments.