In Silico Survey and Characterization of <i>Babesia microti</i> Functional and Non-Functional Proteases
Human babesiosis caused by the intraerythrocytic apicomplexan <i>Babesia microti</i> is an expanding tick-borne zoonotic disease that may cause severe symptoms and death in elderly or immunocompromised individuals. In light of an increasing resistance of <i>B. microti</i> to...
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
MDPI AG
2021
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/d2014fd2d1c34026b82479bfbe514ed9 |
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| Sumario: | Human babesiosis caused by the intraerythrocytic apicomplexan <i>Babesia microti</i> is an expanding tick-borne zoonotic disease that may cause severe symptoms and death in elderly or immunocompromised individuals. In light of an increasing resistance of <i>B. microti</i> to drugs, there is a lack of therapeutic alternatives. Species-specific proteases are essential for parasite survival and possible chemotherapeutic targets. However, the repertoire of proteases in <i>B. microti</i> remains poorly investigated. Herein, we employed several combined bioinformatics tools and strategies to organize and identify genes encoding for the full repertoire of proteases in the <i>B. microti</i> genome. We identified 64 active proteases and 25 nonactive protease homologs. These proteases can be classified into cysteine (<i>n</i> = 28), serine (<i>n</i> = 21), threonine (<i>n</i> = 14), asparagine (<i>n</i> = 7), and metallopeptidases (<i>n</i> = 19), which, in turn, are assigned to a total of 38 peptidase families. Comparative studies between the repertoire of <i>B. bovis</i> and <i>B. microti</i> proteases revealed differences among sensu stricto and sensu lato <i>Babesia</i> parasites that reflect their distinct evolutionary history. Overall, this data may help direct future research towards our understanding of the biology and pathogenicity of <i>Babesia</i> parasites and to explore proteases as targets for developing novel therapeutic interventions. |
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