Role of superoxide dismutase in survival of Leishmania within the macrophage.

Iron superoxide dismutases targeted to the glycosomes of Leishmania chagasi are important for survival.

Kinetoplastid glycosomes contain a variety of metabolic activities, such as glycolysis, beta-oxidation of fatty acids, lipid biosynthesis, and purine salvage. One advantage of sequestering metabolic activities is the avoidance of cellular oxidative damage by reactive oxygen species produced as a by-product of metabolism. Little is known about how glycosomes themselves withstand these toxic meta...

Leishmanial glycosomes contain superoxide dismutase.

In this work we report that superoxide dismutase is entrapped in a microbody-like organelle, the glycosome, present in Leishmania spp. Studies on the sensitivity of the enzyme to various inhibitors indicated that glycosomal superoxide dismutase is predominantly of the Cu/Zu type. Localization of superoxide dismutase in glycosomes points to the major importance of this organelle in the survival ...

Cloning and Expression of Leishmania major Superoxide Dismutase B1: A Potential Target Antigen for Serodiagnosis of Leishmaniasis

Iron uptake controls the generation of Leishmania infective forms through regulation of ROS levels

During its life cycle, Leishmania undergoes extreme environmental changes, alternating between insect vectors and vertebrate hosts. Elevated temperature and decreased pH, conditions encountered after macrophage invasion, can induce axenic differentiation of avirulent promastigotes into virulent amastigotes. Here we show that iron uptake is a major trigger for the differentiation of Leishmania a...

Susceptibility of Leishmania to Oxygen

In previous reports, we demonstrated that the enhanced capacity of immunologically activated macrophages to generate toxic oxygen intermediates beyond superoxide anion (O~-) z and hydrogen peroxide (H202) contributes importantly to the killing and inhibition of growth of Toxoplasma gondii (1, 2). In contrast, unperturbed resident peritoneal cells from normal mice and those elicited by inflammat...