Leishmaniasis is a detrimental disease causing serious changes in quality of life
and some forms can lead to death. The disease is spread by the parasite Leishmania
transmitted by sandfly vectors and their primary hosts are vertebrates including humans.
The pathogen penetrates host cells and secretes proteins (the secretome) to repurpose
cells for pathogen growth and to alter cell signaling via host–pathogen protein–protein
interactions). Here, we present LeishMANIAdb, a database specifically designed to
investigate how Leishmania virulence factors may interfere with host proteins. Since
the secretomes of different Leishmania species are only partially characterized, we
collated various experimental evidence and used computational predictions to identify
Leishmania secreted proteins to generate a user-friendly unified web resource allowing
users to access all information available on experimental and predicted secretomes.
In addition, we manually annotated host–pathogen interactions of 211 proteins and
the localization/function of 3764 transmembrane (TM) proteins of different Leishmania
species. We also enriched all proteins with automatic structural and functional predictions
that can provide new insights in the molecular mechanisms of infection. Our database
may provide novel insights into Leishmania host–pathogen interactions and help to
identify new therapeutic targets for this neglected disease.
