An atypical proprotein convertase in Giardia lamblia differentiation

Mechanisms of Giardia lamblia differentiation into cysts.

Microbiologists have long been intrigued by the ability of parasitic organisms to adapt to changes in the environment. Since most parasites occupy several niches during their journey between vectors and hosts, they have developed adaptive responses which allow them to survive under adverse conditions. Therefore, the life cycles of protozoan and helminthic parasites are excellent models with whi...

Giardia Lamblia.

The secretory proprotein convertase neural apoptosis-regulated convertase 1 (NARC-1): liver regeneration and neuronal differentiation.

Seven secretory mammalian kexin-like subtilases have been identified that cleave a variety of precursor proteins at monobasic and dibasic residues. The recently characterized pyrolysin-like subtilase SKI-1 cleaves proproteins at nonbasic residues. In this work we describe the properties of a proteinase K-like subtilase, neural apoptosis-regulated convertase 1 (NARC-1), representing the ninth me...

Giardia lamblia and Giardiasis

Introduction Ask the average outdoors person about Giardia lamblia, and they have certainly heard about it. Almost always, however, they are considerably misinformed about both the organism’s significance in wilderness water and the seriousness of the disease, giardiasis, if contracted. The amount of information easily found on the subject is voluminous. Unfortunately, almost all of it is flawe...

Pyrimidine salvage in Giardia lamblia

We have found that the anaerobic protozoan parasite Giardia lamblia is incapable of de novo pyrimidine metabolism, as shown by its inability to incorporate orotate, bicarbonate, and aspartate into the pyrimidine nucleotide pool. Results from high performance liquid chromatography of pyrimidine and pyrimidine nucleoside pulse-labeled nucleotide pools and enzyme assays suggest that the parasite s...