The role of proteolysis during differentiation of Trypanosoma brucei from the bloodstream to the procyclic form.

The in vitro differentiation of Trypanosoma brucei from bloodstream to procyclic (insect) forms is accompanied by diminishing variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) and increasing levels of procyclin and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK). In this study, we examined the fate of several glycolytic enzymes of T. brucei during differentiation. We observed a down-regulation of glycosomal phosphoglycerate kinase (gPGK) during differentiation. In contrast, intracellular levels of glycosomal glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH), aldolase (ALD), and phosphoglucoisomerase (PGI) remained unchanged during differentiation and apparently continued to be synthesized in the procyclic form. To determine the potential role of proteasomes and other proteases during the differentiation process, we tested the effect of lactacystin, a specific inhibitor of proteasome activity, and morpholinourea-Phe-homoPhe-benz-alpha-pyrone (P27), a selective inhibitor of cysteine proteases, on the in vitro differentiation of T. brucei. Cells differentiated normally in the presence of 1 microM lactacystin, which confirmed our previous observation that this differentiation does not require crossing any phase boundaries in the cell cycle (Mutomba and Wang, Mol Biochem Parasitol 1996;80:89-102). But the cells thus differentiated did not increase in number and retained gPGK. Cells differentiated under 2 microM P27 also proceeded at a normal rate but failed to multiply and retained gPGK. However, most of the differentiated cells under 2 microM P27 also retained VSG on the cell membrane surface and expressed higher levels of procyclin suggesting that a cysteine protease(s) may be involved in releasing VSG and partially reducing procyclin during differentiation. This cysteine protease(s) has been tentatively identified in the procyclic cells as a 48 kDa protein through labeling of cysteine protease(s) with a biotinylated P27 homolog K02 (morpholinourea-Phe-homoPhe-vinylsulfone).