Mining the Proteome of Toxoplasma Parasites Seeking Vaccine and Diagnostic Candidates

Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii is a pathogenic protozoan parasite that infects the nucleated cells of warm-blooded hosts leading to an infectious zoonotic disease known as toxoplasmosis. The infection outcomes might be severe and fatal in patients with immunodeficiency, diabetes, and pregnant women and infants. The One Health approach to toxoplasmosis highlights that the health of humans is closely related to the health of animals and our common environment. The presence of drug resistance and side effects, the further improvement of sensitivity and specificity of serodiagnostic tools and the potentiality of vaccine candidates to induce the host immune response are considered as justifiable reasons for the identification of novel targets for the better management of toxoplasmosis. Thus, the identification of new critical proteins in the proteome of Toxoplasma parasites can also be helpful in designing and test more effective drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tools. Accordingly, in this study we present important proteins found in the proteome of the life cycle-specific stages of Toxoplasma parasites that are potential diagnostic or vaccine candidates. The current study might help to understand the complexity of these parasites and provide a possible source of strategies and biomolecules that can be further evaluated in the pathobiology of Toxoplasma parasites and for diagnostics and vaccine trials against this disease.

A potential cure for tumor‐associated immunosuppression by Toxoplasma gondii

“…Actin‐binding T. gondii profilin (Tgprofilin) with the molecular weight of 14–19 kDa was found in Soluble T. gondii antigens (STAg). 64 It enhances the immune response and lessens the pathogenic effects of bacteria, viruses, and other diseases‐causing agents. 65 The profilin‐like protein (TgPLP) has a molecular weight of 17.5 kD and a high degree of similarity to Tgprofilin.…”

Proteomics Applications in Toxoplasma gondii: Unveiling the Host–Parasite Interactions and Therapeutic Target Discovery

“…Functional and comparative genomics have emerged as well-explored perspectives for analyzing proteomics, providing insights by linking functions to proteins in our dataset based on knowledge from model organisms [62]. While pipelines for analyzing proteomics datasets from various perspectives, including epigenetics, have been developed [63], the majority of studies focus on predicting new antigens for diagnosis or vaccine development [64][65][66][67][68]. Multi-epitopes antigens are designed using bioinformatics tools like the ANTIGENpro database (http://scratch.proteomics.ics.uci.edu (accessed on 11 December 2023)), NetCTL 1.2 server (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/NetCTL/ (accessed on 11 December 2023)), IFN epitope server (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/ ifnepitope/scan.php (accessed on 11 December 2023)) and the ABCpred server (http: //www.imtech.res.in/raghava/abcpred/ (accessed on 11 December 2023)).…”

“…Proteomics has provided crucial understandings of T. gondii's biology, identifying potential drug targets, repurposing certain drugs, and contributing to the development of innovative therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines against this parasitic pathogen [6,67,[171][172][173]. The identification of functional proteins within structures like micronemes and rhoptries holds promise for advancing diagnostics and vaccine development against toxoplasmosis [67,174]. Initially, drugs were discovered through whole organism screening, which involved testing compounds in in vitro and in vivo models.…”

“…Multiepitope antigens and computational pipelines enhance diagnostic and vaccine strategies. Identifying immunodominant epitopes and functional proteins through proteomics aids in developing comprehensive protection strategies against toxoplasmosis [67]. A significant homology was observed in the antigenic proteome profiles between N. caninum and T. gondii, which has important implications.…”