Shankar A, Mitchen T K, Hall L R, Turco S J, Titus R G
Department of Tropical Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115.
Mol Biochem Parasitol. 1993 Oct;61(2):207-16. doi: 10.1016/0166-6851(93)90067-8.
An attenuated clone of Leishmania major was produced by chemical mutagenesis with N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine and was biochemically characterized to determine the reason(s) for its loss of virulence. We found that the degree of virulence of L. major did not correlate with either the level of expression of promastigote surface protease (PSP) or with the enzymatic activity of the molecule. In contrast, the levels of lipophosphoglycan (LPG) expressed by the attenuated clone were found to be at least 6-fold less than those of virulent L. major. When the attenuated L. major was injected into BALB/c mice and allowed to revert to virulence, the degree of reversion to virulence that the parasites underwent correlated directly with the amount and form (metacyclic) of LPG expressed by the parasites. Thus, these results further implicate LPG as an important Leishmania virulence factor.
用N-甲基-N'-硝基-N-亚硝基胍进行化学诱变产生了杜氏利什曼原虫的减毒株，并对其进行了生化特性分析，以确定其毒力丧失的原因。我们发现，杜氏利什曼原虫的毒力程度与前鞭毛体表面蛋白酶（PSP）的表达水平或该分子的酶活性均无关联。相反，发现减毒株表达的脂磷壁酸（LPG）水平比有毒力的杜氏利什曼原虫至少低6倍。当将减毒的杜氏利什曼原虫注射到BALB/c小鼠体内并使其恢复毒力时，寄生虫恢复毒力的程度与寄生虫表达的LPG的量和形式（亚循环体）直接相关。因此，这些结果进一步表明LPG是利什曼原虫的一种重要毒力因子。
