Structure and Function of a Leishmania Mitochondrial t RNA Import Factor (original) (raw)

2007

Abstract

Leishmania, a dimorphic protozoan parasite of the order kinetoplastida is the causative agent for a large number of diseases ranging from self-healing skin ulcers to severe pathologies associated with visceral leishmaniasis. The parasite exists as a flagellated mobile promastigote form in the sand-fly vector and as a sessile amastigote form in the mammalian host. The transformation from one form to the other occurs in the phagolysosomal compartment of host macrophages. One characteristic feature of these parasites is that, their mitochondrial genome does not have any tRNA encoding genes. Therefore, to carry out mitochondrial protein synthesis, the entire set of tRNAs have to be imported into the mitochondria from the cytosol. An in vitro assay system had been previously developed in this laboratory using purified Leishmania mitochondria (311,313,328). This assay system demonstrated that mitochondrial tRNA import in Leishmania is ATP dependent and driven by the proton motive force ge...

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