Catálogo de Investigaciones | 2014-2015

50 CIENCIAS Computational Characterization and analysis of the Enzymatic Content of Loa Loa and its comparison with the enzymatic content of the nematode genomic model Litomosoides Sigmodontis Filarial nematodes constitute an important element in filarial human diseases. One such nematode is Loa loa , because it affects 13 million people around the world. Loiasis is considered a neglected tropical disease and presents complications in regions of the world where it is co-endemic with other filarial nematodes as Onchocerca volvulus . The focus of this investigation was to computationally characterize the enzymatic content of L. loa . Enzymes are commonly used as pharmacological targets. Litomosoides sigmodontis is the model for human filariasis and, thus, its proteome was compared to L. loa’s . Biochemical computational tools were used to characterize and analyze the enzymatic content of L. loa and L. sigmodontis . Blast2GO allowed the functional annotation that provided the Gene Ontology terms for most query sequences. A 60.81% of L. loa’s proteome was characterized and 62.55% of L. sigmodontis . A 21.65% and 25.25% were identified as enzymes of L. loa and L. sigmodontis respectively. With the data and information obtained, an enzymatic distribution was performed identifying hydrolases as the most abundant class of enzyme and lyase as the least abundant for both nematodes. The data obtained in this research contributes information to the general knowledge and understanding of L. loa . More research needs to be made to fully understand how this organism interacts with the human host and other coendemic filarial nematodes that provoke severe adverse reactions to Ivermectin and DEC treatments if there is a co-infection. katherine m. subirana reyes maestría en ciencias con especialidad en química mentor: dra. mónica arroyo cabán bioinformatics structural biochemistry enzymes loalasis genomics