Figure 1.

The Leishmania LIT1 gene encodes a membrane protein with high similarity to the IRT1 ferrous iron transporter from A. thaliana. (A) Alignment of the amino acid sequences of LIT1 from L. amazonensis and L. major (LmjF31.3060 and LmjF31.3070), and the IRT1 and IRT2 genes from A. thaliana. Identical residues are boxed in black, and the conserved residues shown to be critical for iron transport function in IRT1 are outlined in red. The predicted transmembrane domains (I-VIII) are underlined, and transmembrane domain IV is indicated. (B) Wild-type L. amazonensis promastigotes transfected with a GFP-LIT1 expression construct (pXG-LIT1). GFP-LIT1 fluorescence was detected on a plasma membrane (arrow) and in an additional intracellular, perinuclear compartment likely to correspond to the parasite's megasome.