15 research outputs found
Evolutionary Analysis of Cystatins of Early-Emerging Metazoans Reveals a Novel Subtype in Parasitic Cnidarians
© 2021 by the authors.The evolutionary aspects of cystatins are greatly underexplored in early-emerging metazoans. Thus, we surveyed the gene organization, protein architecture, and phylogeny of cystatin homologues mined from 110 genomes and the transcriptomes of 58 basal metazoan species, encompassing free-living and parasite taxa of Porifera, Placozoa, Cnidaria (including Myxozoa), and Ctenophora. We found that the cystatin gene repertoire significantly differs among phyla, with stefins present in most of the investigated lineages but with type 2 cystatins missing in several basal metazoan groups. Similar to liver and intestinal flukes, myxozoan parasites possess atypical stefins with chimeric structure that combine motifs of classical stefins and type 2 cystatins. Other early metazoan taxa regardless of lifestyle have only the classical representation of cystatins and lack multi-domain ones. Our comprehensive phylogenetic analyses revealed that stefins and type 2 cystatins clustered into taxonomically defined clades with multiple independent paralogous groups, which probably arose due to gene duplications. The stefin clade split between the subclades of classical stefins and the atypical stefins of myxozoans and flukes. Atypical stefins represent key evolutionary innovations of the two parasite groups for which their origin might have been linked with ancestral gene chimerization, obligate parasitism, life cycle complexity, genome reduction, and host immunity.This research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Czech Republic, grant number LTAUSA17201; by the European Commission under the H2020 Programme—ParaFishControl, grant number 634429; by the Czech Science Foundation, grant number 19-28399X (to A. S. Holzer, G. Alama-Bermejo, and J. Kyslík) and 21-16565S and by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Hungarian Academy of Sciences, grant number MTA 19-07. This publication reflects the views of the authors only; the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein
Repatriation of an old fish host as an opportunity for myxozoan parasite diversity: The example of the allis shad, Alosa alosa (Clupeidae), in the Rhine
Fish farmer's guide to combating parasite infections in carp aquaculture
Our relationship with common carp has a long history and tradition. Carp was considered luxury food in the middle and late Roman period. Later, fish ponds were constructed and maintained by Christian monasteries. Controlled semi-natural pond breeding and fry rearing of carp in Europe started in the 19th century. Today, common carp amounts to 4% of European aquaculture, and it is the favourite Christmas dish in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, as well as in some regions of Austria, Germany and HungaryThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 634429 (ParaFishControl)
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Trypsin- and Chymotrypsin-Like Serine Proteases in Schistosoma mansoni - 'The Undiscovered Country'
Background:Blood flukes (Schistosoma spp.) are parasites that can survive for years or decades in the vasculature of permissive mammalian hosts, including humans. Proteolytic enzymes (proteases) are crucial for successful parasitism, including aspects of
Recommended from our members
Trypsin- and Chymotrypsin-Like Serine Proteases in Schistosoma mansoni - 'The Undiscovered Country'
Background:Blood flukes (Schistosoma spp.) are parasites that can survive for years or decades in the vasculature of permissive mammalian hosts, including humans. Proteolytic enzymes (proteases) are crucial for successful parasitism, including aspects of