Babesia microti immunoreactive rhoptry-associated protein-1 paralogs are ancestral members of the piroplasmid-confined rap-1 family

BASTOS, REGINALDO G.; THEKKINIATH, JOSE; MAMOUN, CHOUKRI BEN; FULLER, LEE; MOLESTINA, ROBERT E.; FLORIN-CHRISTENSEN, MONICA; SCHNITTGER, LEONHARD; ALZAN, HEBA F.; SUAREZ, CARLOS E.

Pathogens

MDPI

Año: 2021 vol. 10

Babesia, Cytauxzoon and Theileria are tick-borne apicomplexan parasites of the order Piro-plasmida, responsible for diseases in humans and animals. Members of the piroplasmid rhoptry-associated protein-1 (pRAP-1) family have a signature cysteine-rich domain and are important for parasite development. We propose that the closely linked B. microti genes annotated as BMR1_03g00947 and BMR1_03g00960 encode two paralogue pRAP-1-like proteins named BmIPA48 and Bm960. The two genes are tandemly arranged head to tail, highly expressed in blood stage parasites, syntenic to rap-1 genes of other piroplasmids, and share large portions of an almost identical ~225 bp sequence located in their 5′ putative regulatory regions. BmIPA48 and Bm960 proteins contain a N-terminal signal peptide, share very low sequence identity (