RT Journal
A1 Wu, Yimin
A1 Wang, Xiangyun
A1 Liu, Xia
A1 Wang, Yufeng
T1 Data-Mining Approaches Reveal Hidden Families of Proteases in the Genome of Malaria Parasite
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2003 
FD April 01 
VO 13 
IS 4 
SP 601 
OP 616 
DO 10.1101/gr.913403 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/13/4/601.abstract 
AB The search for novel antimalarial drug targets is urgent due to the growing resistance of Plasmodium falciparum parasites to available drugs. Proteases are attractive antimalarial targets because of their indispensable roles in parasite infection and development, especially in the processes of host erythrocyte rupture/invasion and hemoglobin degradation. However, to date, only a small number of proteases have been identified and characterized in Plasmodiumspecies. Using an extensive sequence similarity search, we have identified 92 putative proteases in the P. falciparum genome. A set of putative proteases including calpain, metacaspase, and signal peptidase I have been implicated to be central mediators for essential parasitic activity and distantly related to the vertebrate host. Moreover, of the 92, at least 88 have been demonstrated to code for gene products at the transcriptional levels, based upon the microarray and RT-PCR results, and the publicly available microarray and proteomics data. The present study represents an initial effort to identify a set of expressed, active, and essential proteases as targets for inhibitor-based drug design.[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]