Importance of polyphosphate in the Leishmania life cycle

Abstract

Importance of polyphosphate in the Leishmania life cycle – Protozoan parasites contain negatively charged polymers of a few up to several hundreds of phosphate residues. In other organisms, these polyphosphate (polyP) chains serve as an energy source and phosphate reservoir, and have been implicated in adaptation to stress and virulence of pathogenic organisms. In this study, we confirmed first that the polyP polymerase vacuolar transporter chaperone 4 (VTC4) is responsible for polyP synthesis in Leishmania parasites. During Leishmania in vitro culture, polyP is accumulated in logarithmic growth phase and subsequently consumed once stationary phase is reached. However, polyP is not essential since VTC4-deficient (vtc4-) Leishmania proliferated normally in culture and differentiated into infective metacyclic parasites and into intracellular and axenic amastigotes. In in vivo mouse infections, L. major VTC4 (...)