Document Type
Article
Original Publication Date
2012
Journal/Book/Conference Title
PLOS ONE
Volume
7
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0031030
Date of Submission
November 2014
Abstract
Herein, we report the biochemical and functional characterization of a novel Ca2+-activated nucleoside diphosphatase (apyrase), CApy, of the intracellular gut pathogen Cryptosporidium. The purified recombinant CApy protein displayed activity, substrate specificity and calcium dependency strikingly similar to the previously described human apyrase, SCAN-1 (soluble calcium-activated nucleotidase 1). CApy was found to be expressed in both Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts and sporozoites, and displayed a polar localization in the latter, suggesting a possible co-localization with the apical complex of the parasite. In vitro binding experiments revealed that CApy interacts with the host cell in a dose-dependent fashion, implying the presence of an interacting partner on the surface of the host cell. Antibodies directed against CApy block Cryptosporidium parvum sporozoite invasion of HCT-8 cells, suggesting that CApy may play an active role during the early stages of parasite invasion. Sequence analyses revealed that the capy gene shares a high degree of homology with apyrases identified in other organisms, including parasites, insects and humans. Phylogenetic analysis argues that thecapy gene is most likely an ancestral feature that has been lost from most apicomplexan genomes except Cryptosporidium, Neospora and Toxoplasma.
Rights
© 2012 Manque et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Is Part Of
VCU Microbiology and Immunology Publications
Database accession number of sequences used in phylogenetic reconstruction.
Comments
Originally published at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031030