Carolyn Paisie, PhD

Leishmania donovani, an intracellular parasitic trypanosomatid, causes kala-azar, a fatal form of visceral leishmaniasis in humans. Infection occurs through a cyclical cycle whereby parasites living in the midguts of female sandflies (promastigote stage) are transferred to the host via a bite from an infected female sandfly, are phagocytosed by human macrophages, and are then transferred to phagolysosomes of human macrophages (amastigote stage). Previous studies have demonstrated that L. donovani differentiation is regulated by changes in gene expression. Thus we have performed high throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to elucidate changes in transcript abundance for all cellular mRNAs during L. donovani differentiation from promastigotes into amastigotes. Analyses revealed gene expression changes which may affect posttranscriptional and translational processes during differentiation.