Analysis of ESTs from Lutzomyia longipalpis sand flies and their contribution toward understanding the insect-parasite relationship.

ABSTRACT: An expressed sequence tag library has been generated from a sand fly vector of visceral leishmaniasis, Lutzomyia longipalpis. A normalized cDNA library was constructed from whole adults and 16,608 clones were sequenced from both ends and assembled into 10,203 contigs and singlets. Of these 58% showed significant similarity to known genes from other organisms, <4% were identical to described sand fly genes, and 42% had no match to any database sequence. Our analyses revealed putative proteins involved in the barrier function of the gut (peritrophins, microvillar proteins, glutamine synthase), digestive physiology (secreted and membrane-anchored hydrolytic enzymes), and the immune response (gram-negative binding proteins, thioester proteins, scavenger receptors, galectins, signaling pathway

SUBMITTER: Dillon RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2675706 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature