Calcium-dependent proteolytic activity of a cysteine protease caldonopain is detected during Leishmania infection.

A calcium-activated protease caldonopain in the cytosolic fraction of Leishmania donovani has been found to digest different endogenous proteins when subjected to SDS-PAGE. Gelatin-embedded gel electrophoresis confirms presence of calcium-dependent protease activity. Ca(2+) affects proteolytic activity after 10 h. When host-parasite interaction was conducted in vitro, caldonopain was found to be active after 10 h of incubation with calcium. A 67-kDa protein is specifically digested during this time and two new proteins of 45 and 36 kDa appeared in SDS-PAGE electrophoregram. This belated action of calcium towards protease activity may be pre-requisite to facilitate invasion of host tissues and thereby mediate protein metabolism during survival of this pathogen both independently and intracellularly. It is likely that calcium metabolism in promastigotes and amastigotes does not propagate in the same manner. Involvement of calcium to initiate caldonopain activity may be critically associated with signal transduction pathways which may be responsible for the pathobiological action of this parasite. We propose that caldonopain could be a potential target to develop new chemotherapeutic approach against leishmaniasis.

A new case of pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency due to a novel mutation in the PDX1 gene.

We report a case of neonatal congenital lactic acidosis associated with pyruvate dehydrogenase E3-binding protein deficiency in a newborn girl. She had a severe encephalopathy, and magnetic resonance imaging of the brain showed large subependymal cysts and no basal ganglia lesions. She died 35 days after birth. We detected a novel homozygous deletion (620delC) in the PDX1 gene, which encodes for the E3BP subunit of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex.

Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency as a result of splice-site mutations in the PDX1 gene.

Mutations in the E3-binding protein component of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex have been demonstrated in a few cases of Leigh syndrome. We report that two mutations previously detected in the E3-binding protein cDNA are the consequence of splice-site mutations. Both involved a single base substitution in the conserved dinucleotides of splice junctions, one leading to skipping of an exon and the other, to activation of a cryptic site. Our findings add to the understanding of molecular basis of E3-binding protein deficiency and indicate yet again the high frequency of splicing mutations in this gene.