Estudo do papel funcional da cisteína sintase e da cistationina B-sintase na resposta ao estresse oxidativo e nitrosativo em leishmania (viannia) braziliensis, trypanosoma rangeli e trypanosoma cruzi

Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis, Trypanosoma rangeli e o Trypanosoma cruzi, are hemoflagellates parasites belonging to the order Kinetoplastida, family Trypanosomatidae, can infect insects, and animals as well as humans. During their complex life cycle, they are exposed to a large amount of reactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species (ROS and RNS) generated by the host allowing their elimination. In turn, parasites adopt various defense mechanisms to cope with oxidative or nitrosative stress, they have developed an elaborate antioxidant system composed of molecules and enzymes to scavenge these ROS and RNS. In this sense, trypanothione T[SH]2 is which efficiently regulate the redox homeostasis on these parasites. The synthesis of trypanothione depends on the availability of cysteine, a sulfur-containing amino acid implicated in several processes, including the stability, structure, regulation of catalytic activity of various proteins. Two different routes for cysteine biosynthesis have been described: de novo or assimilatory where CS is regulated key enzyme and reverse-transsulfuration (RTS) pathways with a CβS as regulated key enzyme. Because the cysteine metabolism is considered crucial in maintaining the reducing environment for trypanosomatids due to its importance as a precursor for the biosynthesis of trypanothione, this proposal aimed to determine the role of the CS and CβS in the antioxidant response of these parasites by molecular and biochemical characterization of the genes encoding these proteins in the parasite under oxidative and nitrosative stress in vitro. Our results clearly demonstrated differences between these parasites in the cysteine biosynthesis. L. braziliensis and T. cruzi have active the two pathways (de novo and RTS), whereas T. rangeli only has the RTS pathway. The expression and activities analyses of CS and CβS in the different developmental forms of the parasites revealed that in L. braziliensis and T. cruzi there are a stage-specific association, where CS is more active and mostly expressed in amastigotes and CβS is associated with promastigotes and epimastigotes forms, respectively. Unlike in T. rangeli CS was not detected and no stage-specific association was found for CβS. The dose response assay to H2O2 and SNAP shown differences in susceptibility profiles for these parasites. T. rangeli was more susceptible to H2O2, but more resistant to SNAP, while L. braziliensis was more resistant to H2O2, but more sensitive to SNAP. Additionally, in Leishmania there was a clear association between the increased levels of protein expression and activity of LbrCS and LbrCβS with the elevated levels of total thiols concentration in response to oxidative and nitrosative stress in vitro. In the functional analyses, we found an enhanced ability of parasites overexpressing CS and CβS to resist oxidative stress when compared to the control parasites. In this study we clearly demonstrated that changes in the expression protein and activity levels of CS and CβS may be related to survival to oxidative stress conditions in L. braziliensis and T. rangeli.