Investigation of subtelomeric gene families in Cryptosporidium

项目摘要 隐孢子虫病是一种不成比例地影响儿童和 免疫力低下的成年人。世界卫生组织估计，2010年， 10.5%的儿童死亡;在已知的疟疾疾病中，隐孢子虫病似乎是其中一种 最致命的隐孢子虫病被发现仅次于轮状病毒在归因的情况下，中度至 在一项横跨非洲和东南亚的多中心流行病学研究中，没有 有效的药物，没有正在开发的疫苗，以及对隐孢子虫的基础研究 寄生虫非常缺乏。隐孢子虫的MEDLE和SKSR基因家族是亚端粒的， 多态性和非保守的蛋白质基序，是众所周知的运输信号，在密切的 相关的细胞内寄生虫疟原虫和弓形虫。这些“PEXEL样基序”指导蛋白质 从寄生虫体内被运送到受感染的宿主细胞中，在那里它们可以重塑细胞 切断宿主的免疫反应本项目旨在了解MEDLE的功能 和SKSR蛋白家族及其在隐孢子虫发病机制中的作用。

Project Summary Cryptosporidiosis is a diarrheal disease that disproportionately affects children and immunocompromised adults. The WHO estimates that in 2010, diarrheal disease accounted for 10.5% of deaths in children; of the known diarrheal diseases, cryptosporidiosis appears to one of the most deadly. Cryptosporidiosis was found second only to rotavirus in attributed cases of moderate-to- severe diarrhea in a multicenter epidemiology study across Africa and Southeast Asia. There are no efficacious drugs, no vaccines in development, and fundamental research on the Cryptosporidium parasite is sorely lacking. The MEDLE and SKSR gene families of Cryptosporidium are subtelomeric, polymorphic, and posses conserved protein motifs that are well known transport signals in the closely related intracellular parasites Plasmodium and Toxoplasma. These `PEXEL-like motifs' direct proteins to be transported out of the parasite and into the infected host cell, where they can remodel the cell and cut off the host immune response. This project aims to understand the function of the MEDLE and SKSR protein families and their role in Cryptosporidium pathogenesis.