Adaptive mechanisms in pathogens: universal aneuploidy in Leishmania

Cytosolic NADPH Homeostasis in Glucose-starved Procyclic Trypanosoma brucei Relies on Malic Enzyme and the Pentose Phosphate Pathway Fed by Gluconeogenic Flux

“…Although we obtained double drug-resistant lines with G6PDH locus-specific marker integration, a G6PDH allele or G6PDH protein was always retained in these clones, suggestive of triploidization (supplemental Table S1). In trypanosomes, this type of locus triploidization upon targeting is indicative of gene essentiality (45), which can be also observed in Leishmania (46). We concluded that G6PDH and ME are redundant with respect to NADPH production, yet the PPP must have an additional and essential function.…”

Is Predominant Clonal Evolution a Common Evolutionary Adaptation to Parasitism in Pathogenic Parasitic Protozoa, Fungi, Bacteria, and Viruses?

“…The results are especially convincing for Leishmania (Boité et al, 2012;Downing et al, 2011;Inbar et al, 2013;Lachaud et al, 2014;Mannaert et al, 2012;Rogers et al, 2011Rogers et al, , 2014Sterkers et al, 2011Sterkers et al, , 2012Sterkers et al, , 2014, but are also available for T. cruzi (Buscaglia et al, 2015;Minning et al, 2011;Reis-Cunha et al, 2015;Souza et al, 2011). Aneuploidy is also frequent in C. albicans and C. neoformans (Ene and Bennet, 2014;McManus and Coleman, 2014;Ni et al, 2013).…”

“…It permits rapid adaptation through gene dose effect, and modulates gene expression (Reis-Cunha et al, 2015). Aneuploidy is considered favourable for clonal populations (cancer, microparasites) (Mannaert et al, 2012). It allows the organisms concerned to explore a large phenotypic landscape, and is associated to drug resistance in C. albicans and C. neoformans.…”

Never in Neutral: A Systems Biology and Evolutionary Perspective on how Aneuploidy Contributes to Human Diseases

“…The latter, more so than the former, has thus been suggested to be at the basis of disease tropism within the Leishmania genus [Rogers et al, 2011]. In fact, the extensive chromosome copy number variation observed in this genus appears to be a constitutive feature that confers beneficial traits to this primarily asexual unicellular parasite [Mannaert et al, 2012].…”