INIBIOLP   05426
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOQUIMICAS DE LA PLATA "PROF. DR. RODOLFO R. BRENNER"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Structure function analysis of polyprotein allergens/antigens of nematodes
Autor/es:
GISELA R. FRANCHINI; MALCOLM W. KENNEDY; BRIAN SMITH; BETINA CÓRSICO
Lugar:
Buenos Aires
Reunión:
Workshop; 3rd South American Workshop: New Trends in Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques; 2011
Institución organizadora:
Sociedad Argentina de Biofisica
Resumen:
Infections with parasitic helminths cause severe debilitating and sometimes lethal diseases in humans and domestic animals on a global scale. Unable to synthesize their own fatty acids and sterols, helminth parasites (nematodes, trematodes, cestodes) rely on their hosts for their supply. The acquisition and transport of lipids is crucial to these organisms, and the proteins and their receptors involved in lipid transport and exchange provide potential targets for chemo- and immunotherapy. Among helminth lipid binding proteins (LBPs), the polyprotein allergens/antigens of nematodes (NPAs) represent a novel class of lipid binding proteins which has been described in nematodes. NPAs are small, helix-rich proteins, and have no known structural counterparts in other phyla, including the animals and plants in which parasitic nematodes cause so much harm. The term polyprotein refers to the production of NPAs as large precursors comprising tandemly repeated units that are cleaved posttranslationally into multiple ~15 kDa protein units which may have similar or different functions. The NPAs are therefore of intrinsic interest because of their novel structure and ligand binding properties, but also for their potential relevance to the success of nematode parasitism. This is a recently started project which would address the following questions. 1) How do different NPA units (from different parasites) interact with lipids? This will be examined using fluorescence-based methods examining the dynamic exchange of lipid ligands between proteins and artificial membranes as well as binding isotherms using natural and lipids tagged with environment-sensitive fluorophores 2) What is the reason for NPAs being polyproteins? Here, recombinant proteins comprising two or three units that are naturally produced in tandem will be made and structurally analyzed by different spectroscopic techniques.