Comparative proteomic analysis of Leishmania parasites isolated from visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis patients

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease in which different clinical manifestations are classified into three main forms as visceral, cutaneous, and mucocutaneous. These disease forms are associated with parasite species of protozoan genus, Leishmania. For instance, Leishmania infantum and Leishmania tropica are typically linked with visceral (VL) and cutaneous (CL) leishmaniasis respectively, however these two species can also cause other form to a lesser extent. What is more alarming is this characteristic, which threatens classic diagnoses and therapies, is started to be acquired by other species. To address this issue, gel-based and gel-free proteomic analyses were carried out on the species, Leishmania infantum to determine the proteins differentiating between the parasites caused visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis. In addition, Leishmania tropica parasites representing the typical cases for cutaneous leishmaniasis were included. Electrophoresis gels of parasites caused to visceral leishmaniasis were distinguishable from the others in terms of repetitive down-regulation on some specific locations. In addition, a distinct spot of an antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase was shown up only on the gels of cutaneous leishmaniasis samples regardless of the species. In the gel-free approach, 37 proteins which were verified with a second database search using a different search engine, were distinguished from the comparison between VL and CL samples. Among them, 31 proteins for the CL group and 6 proteins for the VL group were determined differentially abundant. Two proteins from the gel-based analysis namely pyruvate kinase and succinly-coA:3-ketoacid-coenzyme A transferase analysis were encountered in the protein list of the CL group.