INVESTIGATION OF SUBTELOMERIC GENE FAMILIES IN CRYPTOSPORIDIUM

Project SummaryCryptosporidiosis is a diarrheal disease that disproportionately affects children andimmunocompromised adults. The WHO estimates that in 2010, diarrheal disease accounted for10.5% of deaths in children; of the known diarrheal diseases, cryptosporidiosis appears to one of themost deadly. Cryptosporidiosis was found second only to rotavirus in attributed cases of moderate-to-severe diarrhea in a multicenter epidemiology study across Africa and Southeast Asia. There are noefficacious drugs, no vaccines in development, and fundamental research on the Cryptosporidiumparasite is sorely lacking. The MEDLE and SKSR gene families of Cryptosporidium are subtelomeric,polymorphic, and posses conserved protein motifs that are well known transport signals in the closelyrelated intracellular parasites Plasmodium and Toxoplasma. These `PEXEL-like motifs' direct proteinsto be transported out of the parasite and into the infected host cell, where they can remodel the celland cut off the host immune response. This project aims to understand the function of the MEDLEand SKSR protein families and their role in Cryptosporidium pathogenesis.