Insilico Study of Earthworm CCF1 Peptides in Earthworm

Abstract

The earthworms are known to possess a robust immune system that can combat pollutants and pathogens to which they are constantly exposed in their environment (Ghosh in Environ Sci Pollut Res 25:6196, 2018). Amongst the different components of its immune system, the coelomic cytolytic factor (CCF-1), is an important molecule that plays active role in immune system in earthworm and is of pharmaceutical importance, however its role in immune defence is not known. Reports suggest that CCF-1 has lytic role like human TNF-α, with role in hemolysis, bacterial and tumor cell lysis (Bilej et al. in Immunol Lett 45(1–2):123–128, 1995; Hua et al. in Pharm Biol 49:269–275, 2011) and lysis of Trypanosoma cruzi (T cruzi) thereby activating the prophenoloxidase pathway (Olivares Fontt et al. in Dev Comp Immunol 26(1):27–34, 2002). They have been reported to reveal convergent evolution with human TNF-α (Beschin et al. in Nature 400(6745):627–628, 1999). Due to its such important functions, even though it obtained from primitive organism like earthworm, CCF-1 finds importance both as an innate immune molecule conferring earthworm immunity and is of probable therapeutic importance and forms the object of the current study. In this study insilco approaches and molecular modelling was adopted to explore properties, structure and predicted cellular signaling network that would be affected based on the predicted functions of CCF1 being a vital innate immune molecule of earthworm.