Lipid and fatty acid metabolism in trypanosomatids
Authors:Giovana Parreira de Aquino1,#, Marco Antonio Mendes Gomes1,#, Roberto Köpke Salinas2 and Maria Fernanda Laranjeira-Silva1
doi: 10.15698/mic2021.11.764
Volume 8, pp. 262 to 275, published 06/10/2021.
1 Department of Physiology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
2 Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
# These authors contributed equally to this work.
Keywords:
Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi, Leishmania, neglected tropical diseases, host-parasite interaction, chemotherapeutics, elongases.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Please cite this article as:
Giovana Parreira de Aquino, Marco Antonio Mendes Gomes, Roberto Köpke Salinas and Maria Fernanda Laranjeira-Silva (2021). Lipid and fatty acid metabolism in trypanosoma-tids. Microbial Cell 8(11): 262-275. doi: 10.15698/mic2021.11.764
© 2021 Parreira de Aquino et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) li-cense, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Trypanosomiases and leishmaniases are neglected tropical diseases that have been spreading to previously non-affected areas in recent years. Identification of new chemotherapeutics is needed as there are no vaccines and the currently available treatment options are highly toxic and often ineffective. The causative agents for these diseases are the protozoan parasites of the Trypanosomatidae family, and they alternate between invertebrate and vertebrate hosts during their life cycles. Hence, these parasites must be able to adapt to different environments and compete with their hosts for several essential compounds, such as amino acids, vitamins, ions, carbohydrates, and lipids. Among these nutrients, lipids and fatty acids (FAs) are essential for parasite survival. Trypanosomatids require massive amounts of FAs, and they can either synthesize FAs de novo or scavenge them from the host. Moreover, FAs are the major energy source during specific life cycle stages of T. brucei, T. cruzi, and Leishmania. Therefore, considering the distinctive features of FAs metabolism in trypanosomatids, these pathways could be exploited for the development of novel antiparasitic drugs. In this review, we highlight specific aspects of lipid and FA metabolism in the protozoan parasites T. brucei, T. cruzi, and Leishmania spp., as well as the pathways that have been explored for the development of new chemotherapies.