LeishMANIAdb: a comparative resource forLeishmaniaproteins

Abstract

AbstractLeishmaniasis is a detrimental disease causing serious changes in quality of life and some forms lead to death. The disease is spread by the parasiteLeishmaniatransmitted by sandfly vectors and their primary hosts are vertebrates including humans. The pathogen penetrates host cells and secretes proteins (the secretome) to repurpose cells for pathogen growth and to alter cell signaling via host-pathogen Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs). Here we present LeishMANIAdb, a database specifically designed to investigate howLeishmaniavirulence factors may interfere with host proteins. Since the secretomes of differentLeishmaniaspecies are only partially characterized, we collected various experimental evidence and used computational predictions to identifyLeishmaniasecreted proteins to generate a user-friendly unified web resource allowing users to access all information available on experimental and predicted secretomes. In addition, we manually annotated host-pathogen interactions of 211 proteins, and the localization/function of 3764 transmembrane (TM) proteins of differentLeishmaniaspecies. We also enriched all proteins with automatic structural and functional predictions that can provide new insights in the molecular mechanisms of infection. Our database, available athttps://leishmaniadb.ttk.humay provide novel insights intoLeishmaniahost-pathogen interactions and help to identify new therapeutic targets for this neglected disease.