Researchers have developed a clever method to purify parasitic organisms from their host cells, which will allow for more detailed proteomic studies and a deeper insight into the biology of organisms that cause millions of cases of disease each year.
Many infectious pathogens, like those that cause Toxoplasmosis or Leishmaniases , have a complex life cycle alternating between free-living creature and cell-enclosed parasite. A thorough analysis of the proteins that help these organisms undergo this lifestyle change would be tremendously useful for drug or vaccine development; however, it's extremely difficult to separate the parasites from their host cell for detailed study.
As reported in the September Molecular & Cellular Proteomics , Toni Aebischer and colleagues worked around this problem by designing special fluorescent Leishmania mexicana (one of the many Leishmaniases parasites). They then passed infected cells through a machine that can separate cell components based on how much they glow. Using this approach, the researchers separated the Leishmania parasites with only about 2% contamination, far better than current methods.
They then successfully identified 509 proteins in the parasites, 34 of which were more prominent in parasites than free –living Leishmania . The results yielded many characteristics of these organisms, such as a high presence of fatty acid degrading enzymes, which highlights adaptation to intracellularly available energy sources. The identified proteins should provide a good data set for continued selection of drug targets, and the success of this method should make it a good resource for other cellular parasites like malaria.
From the study: "Transgenic, Fluorescent Leishmania mexicana Allow Direct Analysis of the Proteome of Intracellular Amastigotes" by Daniel Paape, Christoph Lippuner, Monika Schmid, Renate Ackermann, Martin E. Barrios-Llerena, Ursula Zimny-Arndt, Volker Brinkmann, Benjamin Arndt, Klaus Peter Pleissner, Peter R. Jungblut, and Toni Aebischer
Article URL: http://www.mcponline.org/cgi/content/full/7/9/1688
Corresponding Author: Toni Aebischer, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Phone: +44 (0)131 650 5503, email: Toni.Aebischer@ed.ac.uk
Molecular & Cellular Proteomics