Vyacheslav Yurchenko
University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Title: Functional genomics of novel virulence factors in Leishmania infection
Biography
Biography: Vyacheslav Yurchenko
Abstract
Leishmania parasites cause a broad range of clinical manifestations from self-healing skin lesions to systemic tissue damage and death. The current study is focused on functional genomics approach aimed to identify and characterize novel virulence factors that are shared between several different Leishmania species. They are critical for rational drug design for therapies against leishmaniases. In this work we compared expression profiles of the virulent and avirulent strains of L. major and infective (metacyclics and amastigotes) and non-infective (procyclics) developmental stages of L. mexicana. In addition to some known proteins, this analysis revealed a number of novel targets potentially implicated in Leishmania virulence. To gain insight into their functional roles, genes encoding 3 of these putative virulence factors were ablated using conventional and CRISPR/Cas9 mediated techniques. Parasites' phenotypes, development and infectivity will be discussed in the framework of anti Leishmania drug design.