Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0042961 (volvulus)
 4,305 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Antibody against adult Ancylostoma caninum excretory-secretory (ES) products was used to immunoscreen a cDNA expression library leading to the isolation of cDNAs encoding putative hookworm fatty-acid and retinol-binding proteins. Ac-far-1 and Ac-far-2 cDNAs encode open reading frames corresponding to approximately 20kDa proteins with 91 percent amino acid identity. Ac-FAR-1 and Ac-FAR-2 exhibit clear similarities to other FARs of parasitic nematodes, most closely to two of the FAR proteins of Caenorhabditis elegans (Ce-FAR-1 and Ce-FAR-2). By reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay, Ac-far-1 mRNA was detected in both adult and third-stage larvae of A. caninum. However, the respective proteins were detectable by immunoblot only in adult hookworm ES products and adult extracts. Using fluorescence-based binding assays, bacterial recombinant Ac-FAR-1 was found to bind fatty acids and retinol (Vitamin A) with dissociation constants in the micromolar region. Circular dichroism spectra indicated that Ac-FAR-1 possesses a high level of alpha-helix, similar to Ov-FAR-1 from Onchocerca volvulus. This is the first demonstration of a functional FAR secreted by adult hookworms and provides further evidence that FAR proteins secreted by parasitic nematodes are crucial to parasitism.
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PMID:Ac-FAR-1, a 20 kDa fatty acid- and retinol-binding protein secreted by adult Ancylostoma caninum hookworms: gene transcription pattern, ligand binding properties and structural characterisation. 1255 85

ES-62 is a secreted protein of filarial nematodes that possesses multiple immunomodulatory activities. A full characterization of these activities awaits elucidation but to date it has been shown that ES-62 can inhibit pro-inflammatory/Th1 immune responses and in some studies, it has been found to actively support Th2 development. As an active filarial nematode infection is associated with a Th2-like immunological phenotype, this study investigated whether ES-62 was likely to be responsible for, or at least contribute to, this phenotype. Specifically, we determined ES-62's effect on the immune response to two other filarial nematode antigens, chosen for their ability to promote Th1 responses. The two antigens were recombinant Onchocerca volvulus-Fatty acid And Retinol-binding-1 (rOv-FAR-1) and recombinant Onchocerca volvulus-Activation associated Secreted Protein-1 (Ov-ASP-1). Overall the results show that in spite of its previously characterized immunomodulatory properties, ES-62 was unable to modulate/reverse the Th1 immune responses induced by the two Onchocerca antigens. Therefore, in this study no support is provided for the idea that ES-62 might be a major player in facilitating the overall immunological phenotype in filariasis and reasons for this somewhat surprising outcome are discussed.
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PMID:Failure of ES-62 to inhibit T-helper type 1 responses to other filarial nematode antigens. 1831 2