Fernanda Milans del Bosch. 3rd year Pharmacy student
Leishmania is the trypanosome responsible for leishmaniasis. As a parasite, Leishmania lives inside the host’s cells, making its survival depend on the host’s nutrients found inside cells. These unicellular flagellate protozoa are spread by sandflies and kill up to 40000 people every year.
Researchers from the University of York and the University of Melbourne have identified a rare carbohydrate storage molecule called mannogen, which helps protect and regulate the metabolism of Leishmania in a situation of fluctuating nutrient levels in the host. Not only has this carbohydrate reserve been found, but also the enzymes involved in the synthesis and breaking down of mannogen.
Since Leishmania lives inside macrophages, it is able to avoid the action of the humoral immune system and antibiotics. There being no effective vaccine, the fact that scientists may be able to develop a way of impairing Leishmania’s metabolism gives considerable hope regarding the potential eradication of leishmaniosis.
Researchers have even defined the three-dimensional structure of the enzymes that take part in the metabolism of mannogen, providing great advantages for drug design against this parasite. Since mannogen metabolism is necessary for the survival of Leishmania, developing substances to inhibit the action of the enzymes that regulate this process might be the key to killing the parasite.
Not only is this discovery of great importance because it puts forward an approach to eradicate leishmaniosis without side-effects to humans (considering our carbohydrate metabolism does not involve mannogen), but also because it may also contribute to the development of drugs against other infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis) caused by pathogens whose metabolism present similar carbohydrates and enzymes.
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