Campus Units
Biomedical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
12-6-2011
Journal or Book Title
BMC Genomics
Volume
12
First Page
596
DOI
10.1186/1471-2164-12-596
Abstract
Background G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute one of the largest groupings of eukaryotic proteins, and represent a particularly lucrative set of pharmaceutical targets. They play an important role in eukaryotic signal transduction and physiology, mediating cellular responses to a diverse range of extracellular stimuli. The phylum Platyhelminthes is of considerable medical and biological importance, housing major pathogens as well as established model organisms. The recent availability of genomic data for the human blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni and the model planarian Schmidtea mediterranea paves the way for the first comprehensive effort to identify and analyze GPCRs in this important phylum.
Results Application of a novel transmembrane-oriented approach to receptor mining led to the discovery of 117 S. mansoni GPCRs, representing all of the major families; 105 Rhodopsin, 2 Glutamate, 3 Adhesion, 2 Secretin and 5 Frizzled. Similarly, 418 Rhodopsin, 9 Glutamate, 21 Adhesion, 1 Secretin and 11 Frizzled S. mediterranea receptors were identified. Among these, we report the identification of novel receptor groupings, including a large and highly-diverged Platyhelminth-specific Rhodopsin subfamily, a planarian-specific Adhesion-like family, and atypical Glutamate-like receptors. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out following extensive gene curation. Support vector machines (SVMs) were trained and used for ligand-based classification of full-length Rhodopsin GPCRs, complementing phylogenetic and homology-based classification.
Conclusions Genome-wide investigation of GPCRs in two platyhelminth genomes reveals an extensive and complex receptor signaling repertoire with many unique features. This work provides important sequence and functional leads for understanding basic flatworm receptor biology, and sheds light on a lucrative set of anthelmintic drug targets.
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright Owner
Zamanian et al.
Copyright Date
2011
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Zamanian, Mostafa; Kimber, Michael J.; McVeigh, Paul; Carlson, Steve A.; Maule, Aaron G.; and Day, Timothy A., "The repertoire of G protein-coupled receptors in the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni and the model organism Schmidtea mediterranea" (2011). Biomedical Sciences Publications. 17.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/bms_pubs/17
Included in
Computational Biology Commons, Genomics Commons, Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons, Parasitic Diseases Commons
Comments
This article is from BMC Genomics 12 (2011): 596, doi:10.1186/1471-2164-12-596. Posted with permission.