Leishmania Parasites Act as a Trojan Horse that Paralyzes the Translation System of Host Macrophages

GP63 is an abundant GPI-anchored surface metalloprotease of Leishmania . Jaramillo et al. (2011) show that GP63 manipulates the translation system of host macrophages by cleaving mTOR, which leads to 4E-BP1 dephosphorylation. This study pioneers the observation that Leishmania parasites metabolically paralyze their host cells using an elegant translation shutoff mechanism.