Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a vector-borne disease affecting humans and domestic animals that constitutes a serious public health problem in many countries. Although many antigens have been examined so far as protein- or DNA-based vaccines, none of them conferred complete long-term protection. The use of the lizard non-pathogenic to humans Leishmania (L.) tarentolae species as a live vaccine...

Live-vector human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccines are an integral part of a number of HIV vaccine regimens currently under evaluation that have yielded promising results in pre-clinical testing. In this report, a non-pathogenic protozoan parasitic vector, Leishmania tarentolae, which shares common target cells with HIV-1, was used to express full-length HIV-1 Gag protein. Immunization of ...

We have demonstrated that Leishmania spp. grown as promastigotes, are sensitive to the K+ channel inhibitors 4-aminopyridine and glibenclamide. Their host cells, the macrophages, are not affected by similar concentrations of the drugs. We have also initiated the molecular characterization of the mechanisms involved in the development of drug resistance to glibenclamide by the parasite. Therefor...

Glycosylation represents the most widespread posttranslational modifications, found in a broad spectrum of natural and therapeutic recombinant proteins. It highly affects bioactivity, site-specificity, stability, solubility, immunogenicity, and serum half-life of glycoproteins. Numerous expression hosts including yeasts, insect cells, transgenic plants, and mammalian cells have been explored fo...

1. Replicating kinetoplast DNA networks from both Crithidia fasciculata and Leishmania tarentolae have an equilibrium density in ethidium bromide— CsQ which is less than that of covalently closed non-replicating networks. After a few hours of chase, these networks assume the covalently closed posi-. tion in the gradient. 2. Pulse-labeled minicircles isolated, from sonicated networks band in the...

A relatively thermostable 22-kDa endoribonuclease (MAR1) was purified more than 10,000-fold from a mitochondrial extract of Leishmania tarentolae and the gene cloned. The purified nuclease has a Km of 100-145 +/- 33 nM and a Vmax of 1.8-2.9 +/- 2 nmol/min, depending on the RNA substrate, and yields a 3'-OH and a 5'-phosphate. Cleavage was limited to several specific sites in the substrate RNAs ...

L-proline is more completely catabolized by Leishmania tarentolae and Trypanosoma scelopori than by L. donovani. In the two former organisms the activity of 14CO2 derived from L-proline-14C was as high or higher than that derived from D-glucose-14C; in L. donovani more 14CO2 is derived from D-glucose-14C than from L-proline-14C. Addition of unlabeled D-glucose to cells incubated with L-proline-...

Leishmania parasites include important pathogens and model organisms are even used for the production of recombinant proteins. However, functional genomics characterization essential genes often limited in because low-throughput technologies gene disruption or tagging absence components RNA interference. Here, we tested T7 polymerase-dependent CRISPR-Cas9 system by Beneke et al. glmS ribozyme-b...