Trypsin- and Chymotrypsin-like serine proteases in schistosoma mansoni-- 'the undiscovered country'.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Blood flukes (Schistosoma spp.) are parasites that can survive for years or decades in the vasculature of permissive mammalian hosts, including humans. Proteolytic enzymes (proteases) are crucial for successful parasitism, including aspects of invasion, maturation and reproduction. Most attention has focused on the 'cercarial elastase' serine proteases that facilitate skin invasion by infective schistosome larvae, and the cysteine and aspartic proteases that worms use to digest the blood meal. Apart from the cercarial elastases, information regarding other S. mansoni serine proteases (SmSPs) is limited. To address this, we investigated SmSPs using genomic, transcriptomic, phylogenetic and functional proteomic approaches.

Methodology/principal findings

Genes encodi

SUBMITTER: Horn M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3967958 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature