Mitochondrial genomics of human pathogenic parasiteLeishmania(Viannia)panamensis

Abstract

BackgroundThe human parasiteLeishmania (V.) panamensisis one of the pathogenic species responsible for cutaneous leishmaniasis in Central and South America. Despite its importance in molecular parasitology, its mitochondrial genome, divided into minicircles and maxicircles, haven’t been described so far.MethodsUsing NGS-based sequencing (454 and ILLUMINA), and combiningde novogenome assembly and mapping strategies, we report the maxicircle kDNA annotated genome ofL. (V.) panamensis, the first reference of this molecule for the subgenusViannia. A comparative genomics approach is performed against otherLeishmaniaandTrypanosomaspecies.ResultsThe results show synteny of mitochondrial genes ofL. (V.) panamensiswith other kinetoplastids. It was also possible to identify nucleotide variants within the coding regions of the maxicircle, shared among some of them and others specific to each strain. Furthermore, we compared the minicircles kDNA sequences of two strains and the results show that the conserved and divergent regions of the minicircles exhibit strain-specific associations.