title: Molecular cloning, sequencing, and expression analysis of presenilin cDNA from Schistosoma mansoni.
abstract: Presenilins (PS) are integral membrane proteins involved, among other functions, in regulated intramembrane proteolysis. In this study, we report the identification and characterization of a complementary DNA from Schistosoma mansoni exhibiting a significant homology to human and nonvertebrate presinilins. S. mansoni contained a 1,485 bp open reading frame encoding a predicted protein of 494 amino acids. Alignment of predicted amino acid sequence of S. mansoni with PS (SmPS) from other species revealed up to 40% similarity shared among the investigated organisms. In addition, phylogenetic analyses demonstrated SmPS being closely related to its orthologues found in Schistosoma japonicum and Caenorhabditis elegans. Expression analysis of SmPS using quantitative real-time PCR revealed that the transcript is up-regulated in the egg stage. We hypothesize that the high level of SmPS in the S. mansoni embryo correlates to an important role during cellular signaling associated to larval development. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to investigate the existence and abundance of PS from a helminth parasite.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, 14049900, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil. lizandraguidi@usp.br
authors.forename: Lizandra Guidi
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Magalhães
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: de Castro-Borges
authors.forename: Matheus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Souza Gomes
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guerra-Sá
authors.forename: Vanderlei
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D018509:DNA, Helminth / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015801:Helminth Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D053763:Presenilins / Q000235:genetics*; D012550:Schistosoma mansoni / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D018509:DNA, Helminth; D015801:Helminth Proteins; D053763:Presenilins