Homologous recombination in Leishmania enriettii

We have used derivatives of the recently developed stable transfection vector pALT-Neo to formally demonstrate that Leishmania enriettii contains the enzymatic machinery necessary for homologous recombination. This observation has implications for gene regulation, gene amplification, genetic diversity, and the maintenance of tandemly repeated gene families in the Leishmania genome as well as in closely related organisms, including Trypanosoma brucei. Two plasmids containing nonoverlapping deletions of the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene, as well as the neomycin-resistance gene, were cotransfected into L. enriettii. Analysis of the DNA from these cells by Southern blotting and plasmid rescue revealed that a full-length or doubly deleted CAT gene could be reconstructed by homologous crossing-over and/or gene conversion between the two deletion plasmids. Additionally, parasites cotransfected with pALT-Neo and pALT-CAT-S, a plasmid containing two copies of the chimeric alpha-tubulin-CAT gene, resulted in G418-resistant parasites expressing high levels of CAT activity. The structure of the DNA within these cells, as shown by Southern blot analysis and the polymerase chain reaction, is that which would be expected from a homologous exchange event occurring between the two plasmids.