The MB 2

Background: Identification and characterization of novel Plasmodium gene families is necessary for developing new anti-malarial therapeutics. The products of the Plasmodium falciparum gene, MB2, were shown previously to have a stage-specific pattern of subcellular localization and proteolytic processing. Results: Genes homologous to MB2 were identified in five additional parasite species, P. knowlesi, P. gallinaceum, P. berghei, P. yoelii, and P. chabaudi. Sequence comparisons among the MB2 gene products reveal amino acid conservation of structural features, including putative S1 and GTPbinding domains, and putative signal peptides and nuclear localization signals. Conclusions: The combination of domains is unique to this gene family and indicates that MB2 genes comprise a novel family and therefore may be a good target for drug development. Background Malaria causes 300–500 million clinical cases and more than one million deaths world-wide each year [1]. Efforts to reduce disease that rely on chemotherapeutics and insecticides are undermined by an increase in drug and insecticide resistance. Development of new control mechanisms is facilitated by an understanding of basic Plasmodium biology, and the identification of unique and vulnerable properties that can be exploited by therapeutics, vaccines or other control strategies. However, in spite of more than a century of malaria research, much is still unknown about the biology of Plasmodium parasites due in large part to the extraordinary complexity of their life cycles. These parasites are able to infect vertebrate and invertebrate hosts, survive in intracellular and extracellular environments, invade multiple types of cells, and evade the immune responses of both hosts. At each stage of the life cycle, new sets or combinations of proteins are expressed, therefore the biology of the parasite is continually changing. The uniqueness and complexity of this parasite is underscored by the revelation that approximately two-thirds of the P. falciparum open reading frames (ORFs) predicted from the recently completed genome sequence do not match proteins in existing databases [2]. This finding presents a unique opportunity to identify and characterize novel Plasmodium proteins that may be exploited for therapeutic benefits. Published: 28 June 2004 BMC Bioinformatics 2004, 5:83 doi:10.1186/1471-2105-5-83 Received: 27 January 2004 Accepted: 28 June 2004 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/5/83 © 2004 Romero et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.