Contribution of the Leishmania P-glycoprotein-related gene ltpgpA to oxyanion resistance.

Oxyanions in the form of pentavalent antimony compounds are currently the drug of choice for treating leishmaniasis. Leishmania mutants resistant to high concentrations of the oxyanion arsenite were obtained in a stepwise selection procedure. Amplification of the H locus P-glycoprotein-related gene ltpgpA, as part of extrachromosomal circles, is a frequent event in arsenite-resistant cells, but was observed only in cells resistant to high concentrations of the metalloid salts. Revertants grown in the absence of the drug lost their ltpgpA-containing amplicon and part of their resistance. The results of previous transfection experiments in Leishmania had suggested that ltpgpA is only involved in low level resistance to arsenite and antimonite. The results of this study using transfection of ltpgpA alleles isolated from arsenite-resistant mutants or of whole circular amplicons containing ltpgpA demonstrate clearly that this P-glycoprotein-related gene is involved in low level resistance to oxyanions, including the pentavalent antimony-containing drug Pentostam. By site-directed mutagenesis, the LtpgpA protein was shown to require an intact nucleotide-binding site to confer arsenite resistance. Under the experimental conditions used, decreased accumulation of the 73AsO2- drug was not observed in the ltpgpA transfectants. One possibility is that LtpgpA-mediated arsenite resistance could result from sequestration of the toxic anion in an intracellular compartment. The results indicate that despite the fact that ltpgpA amplification is a frequent event in oxyanion-resistant mutants, it contributes only slightly to the overall resistance.