Unraveling post-translational modifications in Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato

Abstract

Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s.l.) is the helminth parasite responsible for cystic echinococcosis, a neglected tropical disease currently affecting millions of people worldwide. Incomplete knowledge on the parasite biochemistry contributes, at least partially, to the limited development of useful biotechnological advances for the infection control. In this sense, little information is available regarding post-translational modifications (PTMs) occurring in E. granulosus s.l. proteins, which ultimately may affect the performance of biotechnological products to be developed. Therefore, we report here a proteomic analysis of the parasite PTMs identified through FindMod software applied to a set of tegumental proteins previously characterized by mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF) analysis of protein spots from a 2D electrophoresis gel. Manual searches for already annotated proteins exhibiting such PTMs were also performed within proteome databases of E. granulosus s.l. and other platyhelminthes. In addition, key enzymes involved in PTMs modifications were searched for within E. granulosus s.l. proteome. Finally, the presence of selected PTMs was further confirmed by a high-resolution proteomic approach (nanoLC-MS/MS). A set of 22 different PTMs most likely to be present in the parasite was suggested, 9 of them with high confidence as they were identified in the same m/z fragment by both proteomic techniques (acetylation, deamidation, deamidation followed by methylation, mono- and di-hydroxylation, mono- and di-methylation, S-nitrosylation and phosphorylation). Interestingly, 5 PTMs were herein identified for the first time in E. granulosus s.l. proteins. Our results expand the scarcely studied topic of PTMs in platyhelminthes.