Catálogo de Investigaciones | 2011-2012

CIENCIAS 50 Structural and functional bioinformatics analysis of uncharacterized proteins of Loa Loa Loa Loa is a parasitic nematode that causes filariasis, a disease affecting about 170 million people in Africa, South America, and other subtropical regions. Filariasis can cause elephantiasis of the limbs and genitalia that leads to life-long disability and social stigma. Loa Loa can also cross into the subconjunctival tissues of the eye, causing pain. Current treatment for Loa Loa infection is diethylcarbamazine (DEC), which may cause encephalopathy and death, therefore it is counter indicated and the only treatment is surgery to remove the worms. The genome of Loa Loa was recently sequenced and is currently being annotated. We performed a genome-wide sequence homology analysis and found that over 4,000 putative proteins (predicted from open reading frames but have yet to be identified in vivo ) of unknown function. The goal of this investigation is to predict the structure and function of some of these putative proteins to better understand its pathogenicity. The results may potentially assist computational ligand-binding studies and structure-based drug design. nilda acevedo y yesenia torres mentor dra. mónica m. arroyo loa loa filariasis informatics structural biochemistry