Differential expression of mRNAs for alpha- and beta-tubulin during differentiation of the parasitic protozoan Leishmania mexicana.

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Abstract
The parasitic protozoan L. mexicana amazonensis has 2 developmental stages: a motile flagellated promastigote stage and a sessile intracellular amastigote stage. Cells of the promastigote stage were found to synthesize more tubulin protein than those of the amastigote stage. Here, tubulin mRNA in these leishmanias were analyzed. Based on dot blot hybridization between total leishmanial RNA and tubulin-specific [complementary] cDNA probes derived from chicken brain, amastigotes and promastigotes were found to have approximately equal amounts of .alpha.- and .beta.-tubulin mRNA. RNA blotting of leishmanial RNA, using chicken tubulin cDNA probes, showed that amastigotes and promastigotes both gave a single mRNA species of 2100 nucleotides for .alpha.-tubulin in roughly similar quantities. Such analysis for .beta.-tubulin revealed mainly a single mRNA species of 3600 nucleotides for amastigotes and 3 species of 28,000, 36,000, and 4400 nucleotides for promastigotes, the smallest mRNA being the most predominant. Regulation of gene expression appears to be different only for .beta.-tubulin between the 2 developmental stages of this protozoan.