Mofolusho O. Falade , Benson Otarigho

Cellular Parasitology Programme, Cell Biology and Genetics Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Author    Correspondence author
Genomics and Applied Biology, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 5   doi: 10.5376/gab.2015.06.0005
Received: 30 Mar., 2015    Accepted: 22 May, 2015    Published: 01 Jun., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Falade and Otarigho, Identification of Sodium-Ion–Dependent Neurotransmitter Transporters among Protozoa Parasite Genomes: Structure, Function and Prospects for Drug Discovery, Genomics and Applied Biology, Vol.6, No.5, 1-11 (doi: 10.5376/gab.2015.06.0005)

Insect-transmitted pathogenic protozoa cause widespread and debilitating diseases in man and his domestic livestock. Malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis cause significant morbidity and mortality. A few members of the group, e.g. Toxoplasma gondii, are also important in disease of immunocompromised individuals. There are no vaccines against these diseases and most of the available drug treatments are toxic and/or ineffective making drug development a priority. The genomes of many of these protozoan parasites have recently been sequenced, allowing rational design of targeted therapies. Sodium-ion-dependent neurotransmitter transporters play important roles in the physiology of many organisms including protozoan parasites making them ideal candidates as therapeutic targets. In the present study, the analysis of 25 genera of eukaryotic pathogen genomes is described. We show the existence within their genomes of genes encoding putative homologues of sodium-ion-dependent neurotransmitter transporters. Excluding T. gondii, we discovered that all protozoan parasites we examined lack genes that encode for sodium-ion-dependent neurotransmitter transporters. Therefore T. gondii sodium-ion-dependent neurotransmitter transporter homologues may represent a parasite specific novel target for drug discovery. Furthermore, sequence alignment and evolutionary differences between humans and T. gondii may allow pathogen-specific targeting of the transporter homologues identified.

Sodium-ion-dependent neurotransmitter transporter; Eukaryotic pathogens; Toxoplasma gondii; Genomics