Descoteaux A, Luo Y, Turco S J, Beverley S M
Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Science. 1995 Sep 29;269(5232):1869-72. doi: 10.1126/science.7569927.
For virulence and transmission, the protozoan parasite Leishmania must assemble a complex glycolipid on the cell surface, the lipophosphoglycan (LPG). Functional complementation identified the gene LPG2, which encodes an integral Golgi membrane protein implicated in intracellular compartmentalization of LPG biosynthesis. Ipg2- mutants lack only characteristic disaccharide-phosphate repeats, normally present on both LPG and other surface or secreted molecules considered critical for infectivity. In contrast, a related yeast gene, VAN2/VRG4, is essential and required for general Golgi function. These results suggest that LPG2 participates in a specialized virulence pathway, which may offer an attractive target for chemotherapy.
对于致病性和传播而言，原生动物寄生虫利什曼原虫必须在细胞表面组装一种复杂的糖脂，即脂磷壁酸聚糖（LPG）。功能互补鉴定出了LPG2基因，该基因编码一种高尔基体内膜蛋白，与LPG生物合成的细胞内区室化有关。Ipg2突变体仅缺少特征性的二糖磷酸重复序列，这些重复序列通常存在于LPG以及其他被认为对感染性至关重要的表面或分泌分子上。相比之下，一个相关的酵母基因VAN2/VRG4对高尔基复合体的正常功能至关重要且是必需的。这些结果表明，LPG2参与了一条特殊的致病途径，这可能为化疗提供一个有吸引力的靶点。
