title: Microarray and KOG analysis of Acanthamoeba healyi genes up-regulated by mouse-brain passage.
abstract: Long-term cultivation in a laboratory could reduce the virulence of Acanthamoeba. To identify virulence factors of Acanthamoeba, the authors compared the transcription profiles of long-term cultivated Acanthamoeba healyi (OLD) and three times mouse-brain passaged A. healyi (MBP) using microarray analysis and eukaryotic orthologous group (KOG) assignments. Microarray analysis revealed that 601 genes were up-regulated by mouse-brain passage. The results of real-time PCR of 8 randomly selected genes up-regulated in the MBP strain confirmed microarray analysis findings. KOG assignments showed relatively higher percentages of the MBP strain up-regulated genes in T article (signal transduction mechanism), O article (posttranslational modification, protein turnover, chaperones), C article (energy production and conversion), and J article (translation, ribosomal structure and biogenesis). In particular, the MBP strain showed higher expressions of cysteine protease and metalloprotease. A comparison of KOG assignments by microarray analysis and previous EST (expressed sequence tags) analysis showed similar populations of up-regulated genes. These results provide important information regarding the identification of virulence factors of pathogenic Acanthamoeba.
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine, Taegu 700-422, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun-Kyung
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Medicine, Jiangnan University Medical School, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ying-Hua
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Xuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan 602-714, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: hhkong@dau.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Hyun-Hee
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Kong
mesh_terms: D000048:Acanthamoeba / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000469:parasitology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D051379:Mice; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D016053:RNA, Protozoan / Q000302:isolation & purification; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012692:Serial Passage / Q000379:methods; D015854:Up-Regulation; D014774:Virulence / Q000235:genetics; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D016053:RNA, Protozoan; D037521:Virulence Factors
keywords: Acanthamoeba; KOG analysis; Microarray; Mouse-brain passage