Rabbit Anti-Human BUD31 Polyclonal antibody

Background: Schistosomiasis is a chronic disease caused by trematode flatworms of the genus Schistosoma. The disease remains a serious public health problem in endemic countries and affects at least 207 million people worldwide. A definite diagnosis of the disease plays a key role in the control of schistosomiasis. The detection of schistosome circulating antigens (CAs) is an effective approach to discriminate between previous exposure and current infection. Different methods have been investigated for detecting the CAs. However, the components of the schistosome CAs remain unclear. In this study, we analyzed the CAs in sera of patients infected with Schistosoma japonicum. Methods: The parasites were collected from the infected rabbits for preparing the adult worm antigen (AWA). The hyline hens were immunized subcutaneously with AWA to produce anti-AWA IgY. The IgY was purified by water-dilution and ammonium sulfate precipitation method and identified by ELISA and Western blotting. After purification and characterization, IgY was immobilized onto the resin as a capture antibody. The circulating antigens were immune-precipitated from patients' serum samples by direct immunoprecipitation. The precipitated proteins were separated by one-dimensional electrophoresis and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Results: Firstly, the IgY against AWA was produced from the eggs of immunized hens by AWA, which gave a titer of 1:12800. The purified IgY was used as the capture antibody to enrich the CAs in sera of S. japonicum infected patients through immunoprecipitation. The CAs were determined by LC-MS/MS. There were four proteins, including protein BUD31 homolog, ribonuclease, SJCHGC06971 protein and SJCHGC04754 protein, which were identified among the CAs. Conclusions: We developed a novel method based on IgY for identification and profiling CAs in sera of S. japonicum infected patients. Four new CAs were identified and have potential value for further development of an antigen assay.

A number of genes have been identified in the fully sequenced genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that appear to be conserved throughout evolution and the function of which remains poorly understood. In this manuscript we describe the initial characterization of yeast BUD31 gene. cDNA sequences highly related to BUD31 have been identified in human, Xenopus laevis, and Caenorhabditis elegans. With the aim of further understanding its function, we generated a BUD31-null yeast strain and characterized its phenotype: bud31 mutant cells showed severe cytoskeletal abnormalities, with dramatic effects on actin distribution and bud formation. We also proceeded to identify interacting proteins using the tandem affinity-purification method, coupled to mass spectrometry: Bud31p was found in complex with proteins involved in mRNA splicing. We propose that the observed phenotypes for bud31-null strain could be the result of defective splicing and indicate a first functional role for Bud31p and its homologs. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.