The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake

Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas' disease, presents nutritional requirements for several metabolites. It requires heme for the biosynthesis of several heme-proteins involved in essential metabolic pathways like mitochondrial cytochromes and respiratory complexes, as well as en...

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Main Authors:	Merli, Marcelo L., Pagura, Lucas, Hernández, Josefina, Barisón, María Julia, Pral, Elizabeth M. F., Silber, Ariel M., Cricco, Julia A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713871/

id	pubmed-4713871
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-47138712016-01-26 The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake Merli, Marcelo L. Pagura, Lucas Hernández, Josefina Barisón, María Julia Pral, Elizabeth M. F. Silber, Ariel M. Cricco, Julia A. Research Article Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas' disease, presents nutritional requirements for several metabolites. It requires heme for the biosynthesis of several heme-proteins involved in essential metabolic pathways like mitochondrial cytochromes and respiratory complexes, as well as enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of sterols and unsaturated fatty acids. However, this parasite lacks a complete route for its synthesis. In view of these facts, T. cruzi has to incorporate heme from the environment during its life cycle. In other words, their hosts must supply the heme for heme-protein synthesis. Although the acquisition of heme is a fundamental issue for the parasite’s replication and survival, how this cofactor is imported and distributed is poorly understood. In this work, we used different fluorescent heme analogs to explore heme uptake along the different life-cycle stages of T. cruzi, showing that this parasite imports it during its replicative stages: the epimastigote in the insect vector and the intracellular amastigote in the mammalian host. Also, we identified and characterized a T. cruzi protein (TcHTE) with 55% of sequence similarity to LHR1 (protein involved in L. amazonensis heme transport), which is located in the flagellar pocket, where the transport of nutrients proceeds in trypanosomatids. We postulate TcHTE as a protein involved in improving the efficiency of the heme uptake or trafficking in T. cruzi. Public Library of Science 2016-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4713871/ /pubmed/26752206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0004359 Text en © 2016 Merli et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Merli, Marcelo L. Pagura, Lucas Hernández, Josefina Barisón, María Julia Pral, Elizabeth M. F. Silber, Ariel M. Cricco, Julia A.
spellingShingle	Merli, Marcelo L. Pagura, Lucas Hernández, Josefina Barisón, María Julia Pral, Elizabeth M. F. Silber, Ariel M. Cricco, Julia A. The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
author_facet	Merli, Marcelo L. Pagura, Lucas Hernández, Josefina Barisón, María Julia Pral, Elizabeth M. F. Silber, Ariel M. Cricco, Julia A.
author_sort	Merli, Marcelo L.
title	The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
title_short	The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
title_full	The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
title_fullStr	The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
title_full_unstemmed	The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake
title_sort	trypanosoma cruzi protein tchte is critical for heme uptake
description	Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas' disease, presents nutritional requirements for several metabolites. It requires heme for the biosynthesis of several heme-proteins involved in essential metabolic pathways like mitochondrial cytochromes and respiratory complexes, as well as enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of sterols and unsaturated fatty acids. However, this parasite lacks a complete route for its synthesis. In view of these facts, T. cruzi has to incorporate heme from the environment during its life cycle. In other words, their hosts must supply the heme for heme-protein synthesis. Although the acquisition of heme is a fundamental issue for the parasite’s replication and survival, how this cofactor is imported and distributed is poorly understood. In this work, we used different fluorescent heme analogs to explore heme uptake along the different life-cycle stages of T. cruzi, showing that this parasite imports it during its replicative stages: the epimastigote in the insect vector and the intracellular amastigote in the mammalian host. Also, we identified and characterized a T. cruzi protein (TcHTE) with 55% of sequence similarity to LHR1 (protein involved in L. amazonensis heme transport), which is located in the flagellar pocket, where the transport of nutrients proceeds in trypanosomatids. We postulate TcHTE as a protein involved in improving the efficiency of the heme uptake or trafficking in T. cruzi.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713871/
_version_	1613524276297596928

The Trypanosoma cruzi Protein TcHTE Is Critical for Heme Uptake

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