Data-Mining Approaches Reveal Hidden Families of Proteases in the Genome of Malaria Parasite

• DOI: 10.1101/gr.913403
• Publication Date: 2003-04-02T03:44:29Z
• Authors: Yimin Wu; Xiangyun Wang; Xia Liu; Yufeng Wang
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Calpain; Gene Expression Profiling; Molecular Sequence Data; Plasmodium falciparum; Serine Endopeptidases; Membrane Proteins; Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; 3. Good health; Evolution, Molecular; 03 medical and health sciences; Predictive Value of Tests; Multigene Family; Endopeptidases; Animals; Humans; Amino Acid Sequence; Malaria, Falciparum; Genome, Protozoan; Sequence Alignment

The search for novel antimalarial drug targets is urgent due to the growing resistance of Plasmodium falciparum parasites available drugs. Proteases are attractive because their indispensable roles in parasite infection and development, especially processes host erythrocyte rupture/invasion hemoglobin degradation. However, date, only a small number proteases have been identified characterized species. Using an extensive sequence similarity search, we 92 putative P. genome. A set including calpain, metacaspase, signal peptidase I implicated be central mediators essential parasitic activity distantly related vertebrate host. Moreover, 92, at least 88 demonstrated code gene products transcriptional levels, based upon microarray RT-PCR results, publicly proteomics data. present study represents initial effort identify expressed, active, as inhibitor-based design. [Supplemental material online www.genome.org .]