Evaluation of: Tovy A, Hertz R, Siman-Tov R et al.
Glucose starvation boosts Entamoeba histolytica virulence. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 5(8), e1247 (2011). Intestinal parasites of the large intestine interact with bacteria and cell debris, and potentially with intestinal epithelium. Entamoeba histolytica lives in the colon and because of unknown reasons, trophozoites become invasive and also differentiate into
cysts. In this article, Tovy and colleagues studied the effect of
glucose on amoeba
starvation for 12 h. In addition, they performed a quantitative proteomic analysis of control and
glucose-starved trophozoites and examined the in vitro virulence of some E. histolytica mutants. They found that resistance to heat shock at 42°C, or to oxidative stress with 2.5 mM
hydrogen peroxide, is similar in control amoebas or under
glucose starvation; however, trophozoite mobility, adhesion to cells, cytopathic activity and hemolytic activity are augmented after the treatment. URE3-BP, KRiP1 and Lgl1
proteins are upregulated while
virulence factors amoebapore A and
cysteine proteinase A5 are downregulated by
glucose starvation. These results suggest that
glucose starvation upregulates in vitro E. histolytica virulence but
amoebapore A and
cysteine proteinase A5 are not essential for the virulence boosting by such treatment. Host nutrients, such as
glucose, could regulate parasite in vivo virulence and differentiation.