Trichomonas vaginalis Cysteine Proteinases: Iron Response in Gene Expression and Proteolytic Activity

Figure 7

Effect of iron on the expression and proteolytic activity of T. vaginalis proteinases. (a) Semiquantitative RT-PCR using cDNA from parasites grown under iron-depleted (L) and iron-rich conditions (H) using specific primers to amplify several cathepsin L-like CP genes (tvcp4, tvcp65, and tvcp12) and AEP-like (tvlegu-1 and tvlegu-2) CP genes. Theβ-tubulin gene was used as a loading control. (b) 2D zymograms of the 30 kDa region parasite proteinases obtained from trichomonads grown in normal iron conditions (N), (c) iron-depleted (L), and iron-rich conditions (H) separated over range 3–10. The arrows show the proteolytic spots of CPs from clan CA and clan CD that show differences depending on the iron conditions [7, 36, 41–43, 52].