“Heterologous expression of a plant arginine decarboxlyase gene in Trypanosoma cruzi”.

CARRILLO, C; SERRA, MP; PEREIRA, CA; HUBER, MA; GONZALEZ, NS; ALGRANATI, ID

BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA-GENERAL SUBJECTS

Año: 2004 vol. 1674 p. 223 - 230

0304-4165

Wild-type Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes lack arginine decarboxylase (ADC) enzymatic activity. However, the transformation of these parasites with a recombinant plasmid containing the oat ADC cDNA coding region gave rise to the transient heterologous expression of the enzyme, suggesting the absence of endogenous mechanisms that could inhibit the expression of a hypothetical own ADC gene or the assay used to measure its enzymatic activity. The foreign ADC enzyme expressed in the transgenic T. cruzi was characterized by identification of the products, the stoichiometry of the catalysed reaction, the specific inhibition by alpha-difluoromethylarginine (DFMA) and the study of its metabolic turnover. The half-life of the heterologous ADC activity in T. cruzi was about 150 min. Bioinformatics studies and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses seem to indicate the absence of ADC-like DNA sequences in the wild-type T. cruzi genome.