Genetic metabolic complementation establishes a requirement for GDP-fucose in Leishmania .

To survive in its sand fly vector, the trypanosomatid protozoan parasite Leishmania first attaches to the midgut to avoid excretion, but eventually it must detach for transmission by the next bite. In Leishmania major strain Friedlin, this is controlled by modifications of the stage-specific adhesin lipophosphoglycan (LPG). During differentiation to infective metacyclics, d-arabinopyranose (d-Ara p ) caps the LPG side-chain galactose residues, blocking interaction with the midgut lectin PpGalec, thereby leading to parasite detachment and transmission. Previously, we characterized two closely related L. major genes ( FKP40 and AFKP80 ) encoding bifunctional proteins with kinase/pyrophosphorylase activities required for salvage and conversion of l-fucose and/or d-Ara p into the nucleotide-sugar substrates required by glycosyltransferases. Whereas only AFKP80 yielded GDP-d-Ara p from exogenous d-Ara p , both proteins were able to salvage l-fucose to GDP-fucose. We now show that Δ afkp80 - null mutants ablated d-Ara p modifications of LPG as predicted, whereas Δ fkp40 - null mutants resembled wild type (WT). Fucoconjugates had not been reported previously in L. major , but unexpectedly, we were unable to generate fkp40 - / afkp80 - double mutants, unless one of the A/FKPs was expressed ectopically. To test whether GDP-fucose itself was essential for Leishmania viability, we employed "genetic metabolite complementation." First, the trypanosome de novo pathway enzymes GDP-mannose dehydratase (GMD) and GDP-fucose synthetase (GMER) were expressed ectopically; from these cells, the Δ fkp40 - /Δ afkp80 - double mutant was now readily obtained. As expected, the Δ fkp40 - /Δ afkp80 - /+ TbGMD-GMER line lacked the capacity to generate GDP-Ara p , while synthesizing abundant GDP-fucose. These results establish a requirement for GDP-fucose for L. major viability and predict the existence of an essential fucoconjugate(s).