Blunting the knife: development of vaccines targeting digestive proteases of blood-feeding helminth parasites
-
Mark S. Pearson
Abstract
Proteases are pivotal to parasitism, mediating biological processes crucial to worm survival including larval migration through tissue, immune evasion/modulation and nutrient acquisition by the adult parasite. In haematophagous parasites, many of these proteolytic enzymes are secreted from the intestine (nematodes) or gastrodermis (trematodes) where they act to degrade host haemoglobin and serum proteins as part of the feeding process. These proteases are exposed to components of the immune system of the host when the worms ingest blood, and therefore present targets for the development of anti-helminth vaccines. The protective effects of current vaccine antigens against nematodes that infect humans (hookworm) and livestock (barber's pole worm) are based on haemoglobin-degrading intestinal proteases and act largely as a result of the neutralisation of these proteases by antibodies that are ingested with the blood-meal. In this review, we survey the current status of helminth proteases that show promise as vaccines and describe their vital contribution to a parasitic existence.
©2010 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
Articles in the same Issue
- Guest Editorial
- Highlight: The Biology of Proteolytic Systems
- Highlight: 6th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society
- Structure, mechanism and inhibition of γ-secretase and presenilin-like proteases
- Is BACE1 a suitable therapeutic target for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease? Current strategies and future directions
- Pharmacogenetic features of cathepsin B inhibitors that improve memory deficit and reduce β-amyloid related to Alzheimer's disease
- Proteases in lymphocyte killer function: redundancy, polymorphism and questions remaining
- Pseudo-active sites of protease domains: HGF/Met and Sonic hedgehog signaling in cancer
- Proteolysis of platelet receptors in humans and other species
- Blunting the knife: development of vaccines targeting digestive proteases of blood-feeding helminth parasites
- Impaired turnover of autophagolysosomes in cathepsin L deficiency
- Nuclear cysteine cathepsin variants in thyroid carcinoma cells
- Deletion of cathepsin H perturbs angiogenic switching, vascularization and growth of tumors in a mouse model of pancreatic islet cell cancer
- Cathepsin E enhances anticancer activity of doxorubicin on human prostate cancer cells showing resistance to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis
- Hydrophilic residues surrounding the S1 and S2 pockets contribute to dimerisation and catalysis in human dipeptidyl peptidase 8 (DP8)
- Molecular contortionism – on the physical limits of serpin ‘loop-sheet’ polymers
- The substrate specificity profile of human granzyme A
- Use of granzyme B-based fluorescent protein reporters to monitor granzyme distribution and granule integrity in live cells
Articles in the same Issue
- Guest Editorial
- Highlight: The Biology of Proteolytic Systems
- Highlight: 6th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society
- Structure, mechanism and inhibition of γ-secretase and presenilin-like proteases
- Is BACE1 a suitable therapeutic target for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease? Current strategies and future directions
- Pharmacogenetic features of cathepsin B inhibitors that improve memory deficit and reduce β-amyloid related to Alzheimer's disease
- Proteases in lymphocyte killer function: redundancy, polymorphism and questions remaining
- Pseudo-active sites of protease domains: HGF/Met and Sonic hedgehog signaling in cancer
- Proteolysis of platelet receptors in humans and other species
- Blunting the knife: development of vaccines targeting digestive proteases of blood-feeding helminth parasites
- Impaired turnover of autophagolysosomes in cathepsin L deficiency
- Nuclear cysteine cathepsin variants in thyroid carcinoma cells
- Deletion of cathepsin H perturbs angiogenic switching, vascularization and growth of tumors in a mouse model of pancreatic islet cell cancer
- Cathepsin E enhances anticancer activity of doxorubicin on human prostate cancer cells showing resistance to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis
- Hydrophilic residues surrounding the S1 and S2 pockets contribute to dimerisation and catalysis in human dipeptidyl peptidase 8 (DP8)
- Molecular contortionism – on the physical limits of serpin ‘loop-sheet’ polymers
- The substrate specificity profile of human granzyme A
- Use of granzyme B-based fluorescent protein reporters to monitor granzyme distribution and granule integrity in live cells
