Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina 'López-Neyra', Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Parque Tecnológico de Ciencias de la Salud, Avenida del Conocimiento, 17, 18016, Armilla, Granada, Spain.
Parasitology. 2019 Dec;146(14):1743-1754. doi: 10.1017/S0031182019001355. Epub 2019 Oct 11.
Kinetoplastid parasites are responsible for serious diseases in humans and livestock such as Chagas disease and sleeping sickness (caused by Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei, respectively), and the different forms of cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis (produced by Leishmania spp). The limited number of antiparasitic drugs available together with the emergence of resistance underscores the need for new therapeutic agents with novel mechanisms of action. The use of agents binding to surface glycans has been recently suggested as a new approach to antitrypanosomal design and a series of peptidic and non-peptidic carbohydrate-binding agents have been identified as antiparasitics showing efficacy in animal models of sleeping sickness. Here we provide an overview of the nature of surface glycans in three kinetoplastid parasites, T. cruzi, T. brucei and Leishmania. Their role in virulence and host cell invasion is highlighted with the aim of identifying specific glycan-lectin interactions and carbohydrate functions that may be the target of novel carbohydrate-binding agents with therapeutic applications.
动基体原虫寄生虫可导致人类和家畜罹患严重疾病，例如恰加斯病（由克氏锥虫引起）和昏睡病（由布氏锥虫引起），以及不同形式的皮肤利什曼病、黏膜皮肤利什曼病和内脏利什曼病（由利什曼原虫引起）。现有的抗寄生虫药物数量有限，加之耐药性的出现，凸显了开发具有新型作用机制的新型治疗药物的必要性。最近有人提出，使用与表面糖基结合的药物是一种新的抗锥虫药物设计方法，已经发现一系列肽类和非肽类碳水化合物结合剂具有抗寄生虫活性，在昏睡病动物模型中表现出疗效。在这里，我们概述了三种动基体原虫寄生虫（克氏锥虫、布氏锥虫和利什曼原虫）表面糖基的性质。强调了它们在毒力和宿主细胞入侵中的作用，旨在确定可能成为具有治疗应用的新型碳水化合物结合剂的特定糖-凝集素相互作用和碳水化合物功能的靶点。
