Expression, purification characterization and molecular modelling of the phosphoglucose isomerase enzyme from Trypanosoma Brucei

Author(s)

Luiz Marcelo Eugenio

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT)
• Defense date: 2001-06-12

Examining board members

Otavio Henrique Thiemann; Luis Fernando Delboni; Richard Charles Garratt

• Advisor: Otavio Henrique Thiemann

Abstract

The African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness as is popularly known, affected 25 thousand people only in 1995. It is estimated that the disease is responsible for 10 thousand deaths per year, according to data provided from the World Health Organization (WHO). The distribution of the disease is exclusively African due to the transmission being dependent on the tsé-tsé vector. A fly, belonging to the Glossinia genus, finds in the African continent favorable conditions for its proliferation. Presently the existing drugs are not efficient and have to be applied in high dosage, resulting in severe side effects. The bloodstream form (tripomastigote) of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei is responsible for the disease and such as the whole Trypanosomatidae family is dependent on glucose. Those parasites consume a quantity of glucose equivalent to its mass in approximately seven hours. This characteristic results in the glycolitic pathway been a key target for drug development against those parasites. In this direction we are developing research with the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (Phosphoglucose lsomerase PGI; EC 5.3.1.9) responsible for the reversible isomnerisation of D-glucose6-phosphate and D-fuctcose-6-phosphate. PGI participates as the second enzyme in the glycolytic pathway. The work developed so far resulted in the expression of the recombinant form of the parasite PGI, its affinity purification and enzimatic characterization. The specific activity was determined with established methods. The IC50 of four inhibitors was determined and a structural model of T brucei PGI was built by molecular modeling techniques. (AU)