Catálogo de Investigaciones | 2013-2014

CI ENCIAS 60 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 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. We are studying 4,941 hypothetical protein sequences to predict their tertiary structure and perform structural homology studies to determine function using various structural and bioinformatics tools. At present, we have preliminary results for 27 sequences, one of which has being structurally predicted to be a motility protein. The results of this investigation may potentially assist computational ligand-binding studies and structure-based drug design. yesenia torres investigación especial mentor: dra. mónica m. arroyo cabán bioinformatics protein structure protein function loa loa filariasis