Mode of Action Studies on New Compounds with Leishmanicidal Activity, Through Functional Genomics Approach

Leishmaniasis affects mainly the poorest population of the third world. Among visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis (VL and CL, respectively), visceral leishmaniasis is the deadliest parasitic disease. There are no vaccines against leishmaniasis and the chemotherapeutic agents currently used are also insufficient. Pentavalent antimonials are being used for the effective treatment of Leishmaniasis. In this study, we characterized compounds with leishmanicidal activity, and determined its mode of action through the whole transcriptome analyiss. The Lesihmania strains were treated with previously identified selected anti-leishmanial compounds in promastigotes cultures on M199 medium (supplemented with L-glutamine, 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum, 0.25% hemin, 40 mM NaHCO3, 100μM adenine, 40 mM HEPES, 100 U/mL penicillin and 100μg/mL streptomycin). Following the total RNA isolation, RNA-seq was performed using the Illumina NextSeq500 system. The genes expression profiling in the treated and control samples were determined using the standard bioinormatics tools, and then compared statistically. To find the mode of action of our already reported anti-leishmanial compounds, we performed whole transcriptome analysis of the untreated promastigotes and treated promastigotes.