ArticleCell death & disease2012
Leishmania mexicana metacaspase is a negative regulator of amastigote proliferation in mammalian cells.
Article in Cell death & disease, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
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- An inclusive assessment of apoptosis mechanisms inCurrent research in parasitology & vector-borne diseases · 2025Review
- Ecotin: A versatile protease inhibitor of bacteria and eukaryotes.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- Systematic functional analysis of Leishmania protein kinases identifies regulators of differentiation or survival.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Role for the flagellum attachment zone in Leishmania anterior cell tip morphogenesis.PLoS pathogens · 2020Article
- A potential acetyltransferase involved in Leishmania major metacaspase-dependent cell death.Parasites & vectors · 2019Article
- Article
- Metacaspases: Potential Drug Target Against Protozoan Parasites.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2019Review
- A novel hydrolase with a pro-death activity from the protozoan parasiteCell death discovery · 2019Review
- Cell death in Leishmania.Parasite (Paris, France) · 2019Review
- Genetically Validated Drug Targets in Leishmania: Current Knowledge and Future Prospects.ACS infectious diseases · 2018Review
- Methionine aminopeptidase 2 is a key regulator of apoptotic like cell death in Leishmania donovani.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Metacaspase-binding peptide inhibits heat shock-induced death in Leishmania (L.) amazonensis.Cell death & disease · 2017Article
- Conditional gene deletion with DiCre demonstrates an essential role for CRK3 in Leishmania mexicana cell cycle regulation.Molecular microbiology · 2016Article
- Identification of Synthetic and Natural Host Defense Peptides with Leishmanicidal Activity.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2016Article
- Implication of different domains of the Leishmania major metacaspase in cell death and autophagy.Cell death & disease · 2015Article
- Comparative structural analysis of the caspase family with other clan CD cysteine peptidases.The Biochemical journal · 2015Review
- Article
- Caspase-like proteins: Acanthamoeba castellanii metacaspase and Dictyostelium discoideum paracaspase, what are their functions?Journal of biosciences · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Metacaspases (MCAs) are caspase family cysteine peptidases that have been implicated in cell death processes in plants, fungi and protozoa. MCAs have also been suggested to be involved in cell cycle control, differentiation and clearance of aggregates; they are virulence factors. Dissecting the function of MCAs has been complicated by the presence in many organisms of multiple MCA genes or limitations on genetic manipulation. We describe here the creation of a MCA gene-deletion mutant (Δmca) in the protozoan parasite Leishmania mexicana, which has allowed us to dissect the role of the parasite's single MCA gene in cell growth and cell death. Δmca parasites are viable as promastigotes, and differentiate normally to the amastigote form both in in vitro macrophages infection and in mice. Δmca promastigotes respond to cell death inducers such as the drug miltefosine and H(2)O(2) similarly to wild-type (WT) promastigotes, suggesting that MCAs do not have a caspase-like role in execution of L. mexicana cell death. Δmca amastigotes replicated significantly faster than WT amastigotes in macrophages and in mice, but not as axenic culture in vitro. We propose that the Leishmania MCA acts as a negative regulator of amastigote proliferation, thereby acting to balance cell growth and cell death.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.