Victoir Kathleen, Dujardin Jean-Claude
Dept of Parasitology, Prins Leopold Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde, 155 Nationalestraat, B-2000, Antwerpen, Belgium.
Trends Parasitol. 2002 Feb;18(2):81-5. doi: 10.1016/s1471-4922(01)02199-7.
Eukaryotes use sexual recombination to achieve innovation and adaptation to a changing environment, a mechanism that is exceptional in Leishmania. It is postulated that asexual mechanisms contribute efficiently to parasite fitness and that sexual recombination would not be necessary for the production of a large repertoire of genotypes. The model discussed in this review used a major Leishmania glycoprotein, gp63, which is involved in host-parasite relationships. Mitotic recombination, which occurs between and within tandem repeats, amplifies genes and generates genotypic diversity. The resulting variation in the protein sequence is concentrated in surface domains, in regions spanning T-cell epitopes and B-cell epitopes and might allow immune escape.
真核生物利用有性重组来实现创新并适应不断变化的环境，而这种机制在利什曼原虫中并不常见。据推测，无性机制能有效地促进寄生虫的适应性，并且对于产生大量基因型而言，有性重组并非必要。本综述中讨论的模型使用了一种主要的利什曼原虫糖蛋白gp63，它参与宿主与寄生虫的关系。有丝分裂重组发生在串联重复序列之间和内部，可扩增基因并产生基因型多样性。蛋白质序列产生的变异集中在表面结构域、跨越T细胞表位和B细胞表位的区域，这可能会导致免疫逃逸。
