a cysteine protease is critical for babesia spp. transmission in haemaphysalis ticks半胱氨酸蛋白酶对巴贝西虫spp至关重要。采集在甘肃蜱传播.pdfVIP

A Cysteine Protease Is Critical for Babesia spp. Transmission in Haemaphysalis Ticks 1 1 2 2,3 3 Naotoshi Tsuji , Takeharu Miyoshi , Badger Battsetseg , Tomohide Matsuo , Xuenan Xuan , Kozo Fujisaki2,4* 1 Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Animal Health, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, 2 National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan, 3 Department of Infectious Diseases, Kyorin University School of Medicine, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan, 4 Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases, School of Veterinary Medicine, Kagoshima University, Korimoto, Kagoshima, Japan Abstract Vector ticks possess a unique system that enables them to digest large amounts of host blood and to transmit various animal and human pathogens, suggesting the existence of evolutionally acquired proteolytic mechanisms. We report here the molecular and reverse genetic characterization of a multifunctional cysteine protease, longipain, from the babesial parasite vector tick Haemaphysalis longicornis. Longipain shares structural similarity with papain-family cysteine proteases obtained from invertebrates and vertebrates. Endogenous longipain was mainly expressed in the midgut epithelium and was specifically localized at lysosomal vacuoles and possibly released into the lumen. Its expression was up-regulated by host blood feeding. Enzymatic functional assays using in vitro and in vivo substrates revealed that longipain hydrolysis occurs over a broad range of pH and temperature. Haemoparasiticidal assays showed that longipain dose-dependently