Leishmania major: clathrin and adaptin complexes of an intra-cellular parasite

To investigate the role of clathrin-mediated trafficking during the Leishmania lifecycle, open reading frames encoding clathrin heavy chain and the beta-adaptins, major components of the adaptor complexes. have been analysed both in silico and experimentally The Leishmania genome encodes three beta-adaptins, which arose at a time predating speciation of these divergent trypanosomatids. Unlike Trypanosoma brucei, both clathrin heavy chain and beta-adaptinl are constitutively expressed throughout the Leishmania life cycle. Clathrin relocalises in amastigotes relative to promastigotes, consistent with developmental alterations to the morphology of the endo-membrane system. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.