West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
Front Immunol. 2020 Apr 7;11:505. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00505. eCollection 2020.
Understanding the functional role of proteins expressed by is an important step toward unlocking potential targets for the development of therapeutic or diagnostic interventions. The armadillo (ARM) repeat protein superfamily is associated with varied functions across the eukaryotes. Therefore, it is important to understand the role of members of this protein family in biology. The armadillo repeats only (ARO; Pf3D7_0414900) and merozoite organizing proteins (MOP; Pf3D7_0917000) are armadillo-repeat containing proteins previously characterized in . Here, we describe the characterization of another ARM repeat-containing protein in , which we have named the Merozoites-Associated Armadillo repeats protein (PfMAAP). Antibodies raised to three different synthetic peptides of PfMAAP show apical staining of free merozoites and those within the mature infected schizont. We also demonstrate that the antibodies raised to the PfMAAP peptides inhibited invasion of erythrocytes by merozoites from different parasite isolates. In addition, naturally acquired human antibodies to the N- and C- termini of PfMAAP are associated with a reduced risk of malaria in a prospective cohort analysis.
了解 表达的蛋白质的功能作用是开发治疗或诊断干预措施的潜在靶点的重要步骤。角蛋白（ARM）重复蛋白超家族与真核生物的各种功能有关。因此，了解该蛋白家族成员在 生物学中的作用非常重要。先前在 中已鉴定出仅含有角蛋白重复序列的蛋白（ARO；Pf3D7_0414900）和裂殖子组织蛋白（MOP；Pf3D7_0917000）是含有角蛋白重复序列的蛋白。在这里，我们描述了另一种在 中含有 ARM 重复序列的蛋白的特征，我们将其命名为 裂殖子相关角蛋白重复蛋白（PfMAAP）。针对 PfMAAP 的三个不同合成肽产生的抗体显示游离裂殖子和成熟感染的裂殖子中的顶端染色。我们还证明，针对 PfMAAP 肽产生的抗体抑制了来自不同寄生虫分离株的裂殖子对红细胞的入侵。此外，在一项前瞻性队列分析中，对 PfMAAP 的 N 端和 C 端具有天然获得性的人抗体与疟疾风险降低相关。
