Calmodulin disruption impacts growth and motility in juvenile liver fluke

David Timson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Deficiencies in effective flukicide options and growing issues with drug resistance make current strategies for liver fluke control unsustainable, thereby promoting the need to identify and validate new control targets in Fasciola spp. parasites. Calmodulins (CaMs) are small calcium-sensing proteins with ubiquitous expression in all eukaryotic organisms and generally use fluctuations in intracellular calcium levels to modulate cell signalling events. CaMs are essential for fundamental processes including the phosphorylation of protein kinases, gene transcription, calcium transport and smooth muscle contraction. In the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni, calmodulins have been implicated in egg hatching, miracidial transformation and larval development. Previously, CaMs have been identified amongst liver fluke excretory-secretory products and three CaM-like proteins have been characterised biochemically from adult Fasciola hepatica, although their functions remain unknown.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-13
Number of pages13
JournalParasites & Vectors
Volume9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jan 2016

Bibliographical note

© 2016 McCammick et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated

Keywords

  • Fasciola hepatica
  • Calmodulin
  • Flukicide target
  • RNAi
  • Growth phenotype
  • Motility phenotype

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