Rauthan Kanchan, Joshi Saranya, Kumar Lokesh, Kumar Sudhir
Department of Biotechnology, H.N.B. Garhwal University, Srinagar (Garhwal), Uttarakhand, India.
J Infect Dev Ctries. 2025 Jun 30;19(6):948-961. doi: 10.3855/jidc.19924.
Trichuris trichiura, a soil-transmitted helminth, resides in the large intestine of humans, causing an asymptomatic disease known as trichuriasis. This global health concern is particularly prevalent in low- or middle-income countries, representing a significant burden on public health as one of the most neglected tropical diseases. The diminishing effects of currently available anthelmintic drugs, attributed to escalating drug resistance, warrants an urgent need for alternative and more potent vaccines or drugs. A substantial portion of the proteins in the T. trichiura genome are uncharacterized and their annotation might offer insight into the parasite's invasion, interaction, and survival mechanisms inside the host. Hence, this study is aimed to provide functional annotations for the uncharacterized proteins identified in the proteome of T. trichiura.
The uncharacterized proteome of T. trichiura was subjected to physiological parameter computation, localization analysis, domain identification, homology, and druggability analysis. The programs used were evaluated using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis.
Functional annotation was assigned to 165 out of the 1726 uncharacterized proteins. Out of these, 85 proteins were found to be non-homologous with the human host and considered to be potential novel drug targets. Two proteins were identified as essential proteins in the DEG database.
Our study identified 165 new proteins from the uncharacterized proteome of the T. trichiura and several novel targets that can be further analyzed for drug designing and vaccine-related studies.
毛首鞭形线虫是一种土源性蠕虫，寄生于人体大肠，可引发一种名为鞭虫病的无症状疾病。这种全球健康问题在低收入或中等收入国家尤为普遍，作为最被忽视的热带疾病之一，给公共卫生带来了重大负担。由于耐药性不断升级，目前可用的驱虫药物效果逐渐减弱，因此迫切需要替代的、更有效的疫苗或药物。毛首鞭形线虫基因组中的很大一部分蛋白质尚未得到表征，对它们的注释可能有助于深入了解该寄生虫在宿主体内的入侵、相互作用和生存机制。因此，本研究旨在为毛首鞭形线虫蛋白质组中鉴定出的未表征蛋白质提供功能注释。
对毛首鞭形线虫的未表征蛋白质组进行生理参数计算、定位分析、结构域鉴定、同源性分析和药物可及性分析。使用接受者操作特征（ROC）分析对所使用的程序进行评估。
在1726个未表征蛋白质中，有165个被赋予了功能注释。其中，发现85种蛋白质与人类宿主无同源性，被认为是潜在的新型药物靶点。在DEG数据库中，有两种蛋白质被鉴定为必需蛋白质。
我们的研究从毛首鞭形线虫的未表征蛋白质组中鉴定出165种新蛋白质以及几个新靶点，可进一步用于药物设计和疫苗相关研究的分析。
