Journal
JOURNAL OF CELL SCIENCE
Volume 121, Issue 17, Pages 2930-2938Publisher
COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/jcs.026963
Keywords
arginine deiminase; citrullination; sumoylation; antigenic variation; encystation; gene regulation
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Funding
- Agencia Nacional para la Promocion de la Ciencia y Tecnolog a FONCyT Jovenes PICT2004
- National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
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The protozoan parasite Giardia lamblia uses arginine deiminase (ADI) to produce energy from free L-arginine under anaerobic conditions. In this work, we demonstrate that, in addition to its known role as a metabolic enzyme, it also functions as a peptidylarginine deiminase, converting protein-bound arginine into citrulline. G. lamblia ADI specifically binds to and citrullinates the arginine in the conserved CRGKA tail of variant-specific surface proteins (VSPs), affecting both antigenic switching and antibody-mediated cell death. During encystation, ADI translocates from the cytoplasm to the nuclei and appears to play a regulatory role in the expression of encystation-specific genes. ADI is also sumoylated, which might modulate its activity. Our findings reveal a dual role played by ADI and define novel regulatory pathways used by Giardia for survival.
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