Proteome profiling of the growth phases of Leishmania pifanoi promastigotes in axenic culture reveals differential abundance of immunostimulatory proteins.

Leishmaniasis is a term that encompasses a compendium of neglected tropical diseases caused by dimorphic and digenetic protozoan parasites from the genus Leishmania (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae). The clinical manifestations of neotropical cutaneous leishmaniasis (NCL) caused by Leishmania pifanoi and other species of the "Leishmania mexicana complex" mainly correspond to anergic diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis (ADCL), which is the origin of considerable morbidity. Despite the outstanding advances in the characterization of the trypanosomatid genomes and proteomes, the biology of this species has been scarcely explored. However, the close relation of L. pifanoi to the sequenced species L. mexicana and others included in the "L. mexicana complex" allowed us to perform a two-dimension electrophoresis (2DE) approach to the promastigote proteome at the differential expression level. Protein identifications were performed by matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF). This insight has revealed similarities and differences between L. pifanoi and other species responsible for cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis. Interestingly, certain proteins that were previously described as immunostimulatory (elongation factor 1β, trypanothione peroxidase, heat shock protein 70, enolase, GDP-forming succinyl-CoA and aldehyde dehydrogenase) are more abundant in the final growth stages of promastigotes (late-logarithmic and/or stationary phase) in the case of L. pifanoi.