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Kinetoplastids differ from other organisms in their ability to conjugate glutathione and spermidine to form trypanothione which is involved in maintaining redox homeostasis and removal of toxic metabolites. It is also involved in drug resistance, antioxidant mechanism, and defense against cellular oxidants. Trypanothione synthetase (TryS) of thiol metabolic pathway is the sole enzyme responsible for the biosynthesis of trypanothione in Leishmania donovani. In this study, TryS gene of L. donovani (LdTryS) was cloned, expressed, and fusion protein purified with affinity column chromatography. The purified protein showed optimum enzymatic activity at pH 8.0–8.5. The TryS amino acids sequences alignment showed that all amino acids involved in catalytic and ligands binding of L. major are conserved in L. donovani. Subcellular localization using digitonin fractionation and immunoblot analysis showed that LdTryS is localized in the cytoplasm. Furthermore, RT-PCR coupled with immunoblot analysis showed that LdTryS is overexpressed in Amp B resistant and stationary phase promastigotes (∼2.0-folds) than in sensitive strain and logarithmic phase, respectively, which suggests its involvement in Amp B resistance. Also, H2O2 treatment upto 150 µM for 8 hrs leads to 2-fold increased expression of LdTryS probably to cope up with oxidative stress generated by H2O2. Therefore, this study demonstrates stage- and Amp B sensitivity-dependent expression of LdTryS in L. donovani and involvement of TryS during oxidative stress to help the parasites survival.

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