Substrate Specificity and Structural Analysis of Pyridoxal Kinase from Leishmania donovani

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a life threatening disease and is also considered as one of the most neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in developing world. According to World Health Organization (2010), leishmaniasis occupies the sixth place in parasitic diseases and is ranked ninth at the global level. Leishmaniasis enlists a broad spectrum of vector-borne diseases evoked by the trypanosomatid parasite of genus Leishmania. The trypanosomatid parasite causing this disease are endoparsite, characterized as free living, obligate, unicellular and microscopic organism that can invade the macrophages of the human body and cause severe infections. This disease is commonly associated with poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, poor shelter and a fragile immune system. newline1.1 History newlineLeishmaniasis has a lengthy history from the first century AD. Manifestations of cutaneous and mucocutaneos leishmaniasis which include skin lesions and facial deformities were observed in the agricultural workers during 15th and 16th century. This was then termed as white leprosy, Andean sickness, or valley sickness . It was also labeled as Aleppo boil, according to Alexander Russell in 1756. During the mid18th century, it was called as kala-azar or black fever in India and Africa respectively. newlineThe disease was later officially named as Leishmaniasis in 1901 after the discoverer and medical practioner William Leishman, who worked as medical officer in India under British Army. He perceived ovoid bodies in the spleen of the patient, in Dum Dum, a town near Calcutta and thereby named it Dum Dum fever in 1903. The patient suffered with brief stints of fever, muscular atrophy, anemia and an inflammed spleen. After few weeks, Charles Donovan found similar bodies in the spleen of patients suffering from lengthened fever with splenomegaly in Chennai. newlineThese bodies in the patient s spleen were observed using Leishman s stain and hence were termed Leishman-Donovan bodies after William Leishman and Charles Donovan. Sir Ronald Ross coined the term Leishmania