Leptomonas seymouri strain:ATCC 30220 Genome sequencing and assembly

The co-infection cases involving dixenous Leishmania spp. (mostly of the L. donovani complex) and presumably monoxenous trypanosomatids in mammalian hosts including humans are well documented. The main opportunistic parasite has been identified as Leptomonas seymouri of the sub-family Leishmaniinae. The molecular mechanisms allowing a typical parasite of insects to withstand elevated temperature and substantially different conditions of vertebrate tissues are not understood. In our work we demonstrate that L. seymouri is well pre-adapted for the environment of the warm-blooded host. We sequenced the genome and compared the whole transcriptome profiles of this species cultivated at low (mimicking the vector) and high (mimicking the vertebrate host) temperatures and identified genes and pathways differentially expressed under these experimental conditions.