Purine and pyrimidine transport in pathogenic protozoa: From biology to therapy

Purine salvage is an essential function for all obligate parasitic protozoa studied to date and most are also capable of efficient uptake of preformed pyrimidines. Much progress has been made in the identification and characterisation of protozoan purine and pyrimidine transporters. While the genes...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:FEMS microbiology reviews 2005-11, Vol.29 (5), p.987-1020
Main Authors: de Koning, Harry P., Bridges, Daniel J., Burchmore, Richard J.S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Antiprotozoal Agents - therapeutic use
Biological and medical sciences
Chemical compounds
Chemotherapy
Eukaryota - genetics
Eukaryota - metabolism
Eukaryota - pathogenicity
Eukaryota - physiology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Genes
Humans
Metazoa
Microbiology
Nucleobase Transport Proteins - chemistry
Nucleobase Transport Proteins - genetics
Nucleobase Transport Proteins - metabolism
Nucleobase transporter
Nucleoside Transport Proteins - chemistry
Nucleoside Transport Proteins - genetics
Nucleoside Transport Proteins - metabolism
Nucleoside transporter
Pathogenic protozoa
Pharmacology
Protozoa
Protozoan Infections - drug therapy
Protozoan Infections - parasitology
Protozoan Proteins - chemistry
Protozoan Proteins - genetics
Protozoan Proteins - metabolism
Purine salvage
Purines - metabolism
Pyrimidines
Pyrimidines - metabolism
Substrates
Transport
Transporter structure
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Purine salvage is an essential function for all obligate parasitic protozoa studied to date and most are also capable of efficient uptake of preformed pyrimidines. Much progress has been made in the identification and characterisation of protozoan purine and pyrimidine transporters. While the genes encoding protozoan or metazoan pyrimidine transporters have yet to be identified, numerous purine transporters have now been cloned. All protozoan purine transporter-encoding genes characterised to date have been of the Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter family conserved in a great variety of eukaryote organisms. However, these protozoan transporters have been shown to be sufficiently different from mammalian transporters to mediate selective uptake of therapeutic agents. Recent studies are increasingly addressing the structure and substrate recognition mechanisms of these vital transport proteins.
ISSN:0168-6445
1574-6976
1574-6976
DOI:10.1016/j.femsre.2005.03.004