Publication Date:
2001-04-17
Description:
A critical step in the infectious cycle of Leishmania is the differentiation of parasites within the sand fly vector to the highly infective metacyclic promastigote stage. Here, we establish tetrahydrobiopterin (H4B) levels as an important factor controlling the extent of metacyclogenesis. H4B levels decline substantially during normal development, and genetic or nutritional manipulations showed that low H4B caused elevated metacyclogenesis. Mutants lacking pteridine reductase 1 (PTR1) had low levels of H4B, remained infectious to mice, and induced larger cutaneous lesions (hypervirulence). Thus, the control of pteridine metabolism has relevance to the mechanism of Leishmania differentiation and the limitation of virulence during evolution.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cunningham, M L -- Titus, R G -- Turco, S J -- Beverley, S M -- AI21903/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- AI31078/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2001 Apr 13;292(5515):285-7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11303103" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Biopterin/*analogs & derivatives/*metabolism/pharmacology
;
Carrier Proteins/genetics/metabolism
;
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
;
Folic Acid/metabolism
;
Genes, Protozoan
;
Glycosphingolipids/analysis
;
Leishmania major/genetics/*growth & development/*metabolism/pathogenicity
;
Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous/*parasitology
;
*Membrane Transport Proteins
;
Mice
;
Mice, Inbred BALB C
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Mutation
;
Oxidoreductases/genetics/metabolism
;
*Protozoan Proteins
;
Signal Transduction
;
Virulence
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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