Department of Parasitology, Xiangya School of Basic Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, China.
Department of Parasitology, Xiangya School of Basic Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, China; Laboratory Department, Thi Qar Refai Health Office, Iraqi Ministry of Health, Refai, Iraq.
Microb Pathog. 2020 Mar;140:103951. doi: 10.1016/j.micpath.2019.103951. Epub 2019 Dec 25.
Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that is globally distributed and can infect almost all warm-blooded animals, including humans. While vaccines are not available for prophylaxis, there are limited therapeutic options which often do not result in eradication of parasites from patients. ME49 is a cystogenic strain of T. gondii with a potential as a vaccine candidate. Excretory and secretory (ES) proteins are thought to play crucial roles in host-parasite interactions. Hence, we predicted and functionally annotated the ES proteins in T. gondii ME49 using public databases. ES proteins were further examined for the characteristics and possible functions through gene ontology (GO) term enrichment and analyses of metabolic pathways, enzyme code distribution (EC distributing) and protein domains. The potential antigenicity of T. gondii ME49 ES proteins was evaluated for the first time using Abundance of Antigenic Regions (AAR) value to predict the antigenic potential by measuring sequence length and number of antigenic regions. The results showed that the ES proteins have different AAR values at RNA and microarray level. Our studies provide valuable information for future experimental studies, including the identification of novel ES proteins of therapeutic, diagnostic and immunoprophylactic interests.
刚地弓形虫是一种专性细胞内寄生虫，全球分布，几乎可以感染所有温血动物，包括人类。虽然目前尚无预防用疫苗，但治疗选择有限，而且往往无法从患者体内彻底清除寄生虫。ME49 是刚地弓形虫的一个包囊形成株，具有作为候选疫苗的潜力。排泄分泌（ES）蛋白被认为在宿主-寄生虫相互作用中发挥着关键作用。因此，我们使用公共数据库预测和功能注释了刚地弓形虫 ME49 的 ES 蛋白。通过基因本体（GO）术语富集分析以及代谢途径、酶编码分布（EC 分布）和蛋白质结构域分析，进一步研究了 ES 蛋白的特征和可能的功能。首次使用抗原丰富度（AAR）值评估了刚地弓形虫 ME49 ES 蛋白的潜在抗原性，通过测量序列长度和抗原区域数量来预测抗原性潜力。结果表明，ES 蛋白在 RNA 和微阵列水平上具有不同的 AAR 值。我们的研究为未来的实验研究提供了有价值的信息，包括鉴定具有治疗、诊断和免疫预防价值的新型 ES 蛋白。
