Analysis of salivary gland transcripts of the sand fly Lutzomyia ayacuchensis, a vector of Andean-type cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Abstract

The saliva of blood sucking insects contains potent pharmacologically active components that assist them in counteracting the host hemostatic and inflammatory systems during blood feeding. In addition, sand fly salivary proteins affect host immunity and have the potential to be a vaccine against Leishmania infection. In the present study, the salivary gland transcripts of Lutzomyia ayacuchensis, a vector of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes, were analyzed by sequencing randomly selected clones of the salivary gland cDNA library of this sand fly. This resulted in the identification of the most abundant transcripts coding for secreted proteins. These proteins were homologous to the salivary molecules present in other sand flies including the RGD-containing peptide, PpSP15/SL1 family protein, yellow-related protein, putative apyrase, antigen 5-related protein, D7 family protein, and 27 kDa salivary protein. Of note, homologues of maxadilan, an active vasodilator abundantly present in saliva of Lutzomyia longipalpis, were not identified. This analysis is the first description of salivary proteins from a sand fly of the subgenus Helcocyrtomyia and from vector of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the New World. The present analysis will provide further insights into the evolution of salivary components in blood sucking arthropods.

• Authors: Hirotomo Kato, Ryan C Jochim, Eduardo A Gomez, Hiroshi Uezato, Tatsuyuki Mimori, Masataka Korenaga, Tatsuya Sakurai, Ken Katakura, Jesus G Valenzuela, Yoshihisa Hashiguchi
• Journal: Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases (Infect Genet Evol) Vol. 13 Pg. 56-66 (Jan 2013) ISSN: 1567-7257 [Electronic] Netherlands
• PMID: 23000112 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Chemical References

• Salivary Proteins and Peptides

Topics

• Amino Acid Sequence
• Animals
• Gene Library
• Genes, Essential
• High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
• Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous (transmission)
• Molecular Sequence Annotation
• Molecular Sequence Data
• Psychodidae (genetics)
• Salivary Glands (metabolism)
• Salivary Proteins and Peptides (chemistry, genetics)
• Sequence Alignment
• Transcriptome