Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1941247 Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 2006 9 Pages PDF
Abstract

Aspergillus fumigatus is a recognised human pathogen, especially in immunocompromised individuals. The availability of the annotated A. fumigatus genome sequence will significantly accelerate our understanding of this organism. However, limited information is available with respect to the A. fumigatus proteome. Here, both a direct proteomic approach (2D-PAGE and MALDI-MS) and a sub-proteomic strategy involving initial glutathione affinity chromatography have been deployed to identify 54 proteins from A. fumigatus primarily involved in energy metabolism and protein biosynthesis. Furthermore, two novel eukaryotic elongation factor proteins (eEF1Bγ), termed ElfA and B have been identified and phylogenetically confirmed to belong to the eEF1Bγ class of GST-like proteins. One of these proteins (ElfA) has been purified to homogeneity, identified as a monomeric enzyme (molecular mass = 20 kDa; pI = 5.9 and 6.5), and found to exhibit glutathione transferase activity specific activities (mean ± standard deviation, n = 3) of 3.13 ± 0.27 and 3.43 ± 1.0 μmol/min/mg, using CDNB and ethacrynic acid, respectively. Overall, these data highlight the importance of new approaches to dissect the proteome of, and elucidate novel functions within, A. fumigatus.

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