title: Glyoxalase I from Leishmania donovani: a potential target for anti-parasite drug.
abstract: Glyoxalases are involved in a ubiquitous detoxification pathway. In pursuit of a better understanding of the biological function of the enzyme, the recombinant glyoxalase I (LdGLOI) protein has been characterized from Leishmania donovani, the most important pathogenic Leishmania species that is responsible for visceral leishmaniasis. A 24kDa protein was heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli. LdGLOI showed a marked substrate specificity for trypanothione hemithioacetal over glutathione hemithioacetal. Antiserum against recombinant LdGLOI protein could detect a band of anticipated size approximately 16kDa in promastigote extracts. Several inhibitors of human GLOI showed that they are weak inhibitors of L. donovani growth. Overexpression of GLOI gene in L. donovani using Leishmania expression vector pspalpha hygroalpha, we detected elevated expression of GLOI RNA and protein. Comparative modelling of the 3-D structure of LDGLOI shows that substrate-binding region of the model involves important differences compared to the homologues, such as E. coli, specific to glutathione. Most notably a substrate-binding loop of LDGLOI is characterized by a deletion of five residues compared to the E. coli homologue. Further, a critical Arg in the E. coli variant at the substrate-binding site is replaced by Tyr in LDGLOI. These major differences result in entirely different shapes of the substrate-binding loop and presence of very different chemical groups in the substrate-binding site of LDGLOI compared to E. coli homologue suggesting an explanation for the difference in the substrate specificity. Difference in the substrate specificity of the human and LDGLOI enzyme could be exploited for structure-based drug designing of selective inhibitors against the parasite.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India.
authors.forename: Prasad K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Padmanabhan
authors.forename: Angana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mukherjee
authors.forename: Sushma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Swati
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chattopadhyaya
authors.forename: Venkataraman S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Gowri
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Myler
authors.forename: Narayanaswamy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.forename: Rentala
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Madhubala
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000977:Antiparasitic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001665:Binding Sites; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D016678:Genome; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D007791:Lactoylglutathione Lyase / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*; D007893:Leishmania donovani / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D000977:Antiparasitic Agents; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors; D007791:Lactoylglutathione Lyase