Functional analysis of schistosomes EF-hand domain-containing tegument proteins

Schistosomes cause schistosomiasis disease which severely threatens human health. Little is known about the functions of EF-hand domain containing schistosomes tegument proteins other than as an-tigens. More possible functions of these tegument proteins were investigated with in silico analyses including protein-protein functional interaction,site-specific variation and glycosylation modification. The analysis results suggested that schistosomes could actively modulate host immune responses for its own favor through functional interactions with host proteins with immunomodulatory function,and passively regulate host immune responses through sequence variation under positive selection and glycosylating the recognition sites of host immune attack. In addition,the analysis of the C-terminal domain of these tegument proteins indicated that they could assist schistosomes in escaping host immune attacks through inhibiting chemotaxis and non-complement fixing antibody (IgG4) responses. In summary,our results suggested that these tegument antigen proteins could assist schistosomes in escaping and modulating host immune responses for self-protection during the process of host-para-site interaction.