Identification and transcription analysis of universal stress proteins in Echinococcus granulosus

HEIL K; MACCHIAROLI N; KISS F; KAMENETZKY L; PRADA L; CUCHER M; CAMICIA F; ROSENZVIT M; BREHM K

Congreso; IX Congreso Argentino de protozoología y enfermedades parasitarias; 2011

Identification and transcription analysis of Universal Stress Proteins in Echinococcus granulosus Heil K, Macchiaroli N, Kiss F, Kamenetzky L, Prada L, Cucher M, Camicia F, Rosenzvit M, Brehm K.   Universal stress proteins (USPs) are proteins involved in the stress response that were first identified in bacteria and later reported in other prokaryotes, fungi, protists and plants. Recently it was shown that they are also present in animal genomes including urochordates as well as Cnidaria and Lophotrochozoa (e.g. the platyhelminth parasite Schistosoma mansoni) but they were not found in the available ecdysozoan or vertebrate genomes. Since USPs were shown to play an important role in the response to different stress conditions and are thought to be involved in developmental processes, have cristallized structures available and are absent from host genomes, they are amenable for evaluation as potential drug targets against parasitic helminths such as Echinococcus granulosus, the etiological agent of cystic hydatid disease. In this work we identified 10 USP coding genes in the Echinococcus genomes, showed that all the predicted proteins are expressed in E. granulosus and analysed their sequences. We also performed semiquantitative RT-PCR and found that some of them are differentially transcribed in different life cycle stages of the parasite. These results pave the way for functional studies of USPs in Echinococcus and future evaluation of their suitability as drug targets against hydatid disease.