Background: Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) plays a central role in energy metabolism and integrates cellular metabolism with signalling and gene expression. NAD biosynthesis depends on the enzyme nicotinamide/nicotinate mononucleotide adenylyltransferase (NMNAT; EC: 2.7.7.1/18), in which converge the de novo and salvage pathways.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to analyse the protein-protein interactions (PPI) of NMNAT of Leishmania braziliensis (LbNMNAT) in promastigotes.
Methods: Transgenic lines of L. braziliensis promastigotes were established by transfection with the pSP72αneoαLbNMNAT-GFP vector. Soluble protein extracts were prepared, co-immunoprecipitation assays were performed, and the co-immunoprecipitates were analysed by mass spectrometry. Furthermore, bioinformatics tools such as network analysis were applied to generate a PPI network.
Findings: Proteins involved in protein folding, redox homeostasis, and translation were found to interact with the LbNMNAT protein. The PPI network indicated enzymes of the nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolic routes, as well as RNA-binding proteins, the latter being the point of convergence between our experimental and computational results.
Main conclusion: We constructed a model of PPI of LbNMNAT and showed its association with proteins involved in various functions such as protein folding, redox homeostasis, translation, and NAD synthesis.