Metabolic control analysis of the proline oxidation and biosynthesis in Trypanosoma Cruzi

Abstract

Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent for Chagas´ disease, uses amino acids (proline among them) and carbohydrates as energy and carbon sources. It was shown in the literature that speciffically proline has several roles, participating of the energy metabolism, osmoregulation, metacyclogenesis, host-cell invasion, intracellular epimastigotes to trypomastigotes differentiation and resistence to different types of stress, in particular to oxidative stress. In addition, data from our laboratory showed that both, degradation and biosynthesis of proline are crucial in T. cruzi biology. In 2016, during a previous visit of Prof. Paul Michels, we iniciated the development of a mathematical model to make a computational analysis of the metabolic control of this pathway in T. cruzi. In that time it was not possible to finish the development of the model because we lacked some fundamental information, such as the enzymological characterization of some metabolic steps. These metabolic steps (biosynthesis of P5C from glutamate and flux of the pathway by measuring the production of CO2) are now characterized. Therefore, we intend to go back to the construction of the model already started during the previous visit. (AU)