Label-Free Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Three Strains of Viscerotropic Leishmania Isolated from Patients with Different Epidemiological Types of Visceral Leishmaniasis in China

Fu-Rong Wei; Chun-Hua Gao; Jun-Yun Wang; Yue-Tao Yang; Feng Shi; Bin Zheng

doi:10.1007/s11686-021-00387-3

Label-Free Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Three Strains of Viscerotropic Leishmania Isolated from Patients with Different Epidemiological Types of Visceral Leishmaniasis in China

Acta Parasitol. 2021 Dec;66(4):1366-1386. doi: 10.1007/s11686-021-00387-3. Epub 2021 May 21.

Authors

Fu-Rong Wei¹, Chun-Hua Gao¹, Jun-Yun Wang², Yue-Tao Yang¹, Feng Shi¹, Bin Zheng³

Affiliations

¹ National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese Center for Tropical Diseases Research), NHC Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Tropical Diseases, National Center for International Research on Tropical Diseases, Ministry of Health, Shanghai, 200025, China.
² National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese Center for Tropical Diseases Research), NHC Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Tropical Diseases, National Center for International Research on Tropical Diseases, Ministry of Health, Shanghai, 200025, China. wangjy@nipd.chinacdc.cn.
³ National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese Center for Tropical Diseases Research), NHC Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Tropical Diseases, National Center for International Research on Tropical Diseases, Ministry of Health, Shanghai, 200025, China. zhengbin@nipd.chinacdc.cn.

PMID: 34019278
DOI: 10.1007/s11686-021-00387-3

Abstract

Background: There are three epidemiological types of visceral leishmaniasis in China, which are caused by Leishmania strains belonging to the L. donovani complex. The mechanisms underlying their differences in the population affected, disease latency, and animal host, etc., remain unclear. We investigated the protein abundance differences among Leishmania strains isolated from three types of visceral leishmaniasis endemic areas in China.

Methods: Promastigotes of the three Leishmania strains were cultured to the log phase and harvested. The protein tryptic digests were analyzed with liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS), followed by label-free quantitative analysis. The MS experiment was performed on a Q Exactive mass spectrometer. Raw spectra were quantitatively analyzed with the MaxQuant software (ver 1.3.0.5) and matched with the reference database. Differentially expressed proteins were analyzed using the bioinformatics method. The MS analysis was repeated three times for each sample.

Results: A total of 5012 proteins were identified across the KS-2, JIASHI-5 and SC6 strains in at least 2 of the three samples replicate. Of them, 1758 were identified to be differentially expressed at least between 2 strains, including 349 with known names. These differentially expressed proteins with known names are involved in biological functions such as energy and lipid metabolic process, nucleotide acid metabolic process, amino acid metabolic process, response to stress, cell membrane/cytoskeleton, cell cycle and proliferation, biological adhesion and proteolysis, localization and transport, regulation of the biological process, and signal transduction.

Conclusion: The differentially expressed proteins and their related biological functions may shed light on the pathogenicity of Leishmania and targets for the development of vaccines and medicines.

Keywords: Label-free; Leishmania; Proteomics; Visceral leishmaniasis.

MeSH terms

Animals
Chromatography, Liquid
Humans
Leishmania donovani*
Leishmania*
Leishmaniasis, Visceral* / epidemiology
Proteomics
Tandem Mass Spectrometry