The expression of NTPDase1 and -2 of Leishmania infantum chagasi in bacterial and mammalian cells: Comparative expression, refolding and nucleotidase characterization

Abstract Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) represents an important global health problem in several warm countries around the world. The main targets in this study are the two nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolases (NTPDases) from Leishmania infantum chagasi that are the main etiologic agent of VL in the New World. These enzymes, called LicNTPDase1 and -2, are homologous to members 5 and 6 of the mammalian E-NTPDase/CD39 superfamily of enzymes. These enzymes hydrolyze nucleotides and accordingly can participate in the purine salvage pathways and in the modulation of purinergic signaling through the extracellular nucleotide-dependent host immune responses. They can therefore affect adhesion and infection of host cells and the parasite virulence. To further characterize these enzymes, in this work, we expressed LicNTPDase1 and -2 in the classical bacterial system Escherichia coli and mammalian cell system COS-7 cells. Our data demonstrate that changes in refolding after expression in bacteria can increase the activity of recombinant (r) rLicNTPDase2 up to 20 times but has no significant effect on rLicNTPDase1. Meanwhile, the expression in COS-7 led to a significant increase in activity for rLicNTPDase1.