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Dynamics of polymorphism of acidocalcisomes in Leishmania parasites

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Abstract

Growth of Leishmania mexicana amazonensis promastigotes in different culture media resulted in structurally and chemically different acidocalcisomes. When grown in SDM-79 medium, the promastigotes showed large spherical acidocalcisomes of up to 1.2 μm diameter distributed throughout the cell. X-ray microanalysis and elemental mapping of the organelles showed large amounts of oxygen, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and zinc. Immunofluorescence microscopy using antisera raised against a peptide sequence of the vacuolar-type proton pyrophosphatase of Arabidopsis thaliana that is conserved in the Leishmania enzyme, indicated localization in acidocalcisomes. When cells were transferred to Warren’s medium, the acidocalcisomes transformed from spherical into branched tubular organelles. The labeling pattern of the vacuolar proton-pyrophosphatase, considered as a marker for the organelle, changed accompanying the structural changes of the acidocalcisomes, and the enzyme showed an apparently lower proton-transporting activity when measured in digitonin-permeabilized promastigotes. X-ray microanalysis and elemental mapping of these structures revealed the additional presence of iron. Together, the results reveal that the morphology and composition of acidocalcisomes are greatly influenced by the culture conditions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Philip A. Rea for gifts of polyclonal antibodies and Dr. Mark H. Ellisman for the use of the facilities at the National Center for Microscopy and Image Research at San Diego, supported by United States Public Health Service Grant NIHRR0450. This work was supported in part by grants from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico-CNPq, Conselho de Aperfeiçoamento de Profissionais de Ensino Superior-CAPES, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro-FAPERJ, Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo-FAPESP, Programa de Núcleos de Excelência-PRONEX, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft (to H.P.), and the National Institutes of Health (AI-23259 to R.D.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Ultraestrutura Celular Hertha Meyer, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Av. Brigadeiro Trompovski, s/n., bloco G, Cidade Universitaria, CEP 21949-900, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Kildare Miranda, Orlando Grillo, Anderson Franzen, Márcia Attias & Wanderley de Souza

  2. Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology and Center for Zoonoses Research, Department of Pathobiology, University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, IL, USA

    Roberto Docampo

  3. Lehrstuhl f. Zellbiologie/Ultrastrukturforschung, Fachbereich Biology, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Helmut Plattner & Joachim Hentschel

  4. Laboratório de Bioenergética, Núcleo de Medicina e Cirugia Experimental, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas-SP, Brazil

    Anibal Vercesi

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  1. Kildare Miranda
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Correspondence to Wanderley de Souza.

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Miranda, K., Docampo, R., Grillo, O. et al. Dynamics of polymorphism of acidocalcisomes in Leishmania parasites. Histochem Cell Biol 121, 407–418 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-004-0646-4

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