In addition to the activity bands

with an expected molecular weight, a further band of ca. 45 kDa became visible at low pH in the small intestine samples of T. brasiliensis. A strong inhibition by CA-074 and an absence of the respective band in immunoblots points at cathepsin B. It is possible that different cathepsin isoforms, which might be present in the midgut, differ in their post translational modification and thus lead to a divergent enzymatic activity pattern. Both the presence of different cathepsin B encoding genes in the intestine of T. infestans and a strong discrepancy between the theoretical and real molecular weight of cathepsin B has been shown previously ( Cho et al., 1999; selleck screening library Kollien et al., 2004, GenBank accession no. DQ376250). In previous studies,

highest enzymatic activity in the triatomine midgut has been shown at 5–6 daf. Cathepsin B, D and lysosomal carboxypeptidase A of R. prolixus have shown maximum activity at 6 daf ( Houseman and Downe, 1983). In the T. brasiliensis small intestine, muramidase activity has reached IWR-1 solubility dmso its highest activity at 5 daf ( Waniek et al., 2009b). The results of the present study showed highest proteolytic activity at 5 daf and thus strongly corroborate these previous findings ( Fig. 5C). It seems that 5–6 daf is the period with the highest metabolic activity in triatomines. Also in the T. brasiliensis small intestine the proteolytic activity increased strongly at 3 daf and reached its peak at 5 daf. It is interesting that at 15 daf proteolytic activity was not detectable by in-gel zymography, whereas in unfed bugs a clear band was visible. This apparent paradox might be explained selleck chemical by loss of water and a subsequent higher protein concentration in the intestinal tract of long-lasting starved (unfed) insects. We thank Prof. O. Fernandes for technical support and Prof. V. Bongertz (FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro) for the critical suggestions and English corrections. We are also thankful to two anonymous reviewers for significant suggestions. The present work received financial support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ – Cientista do Nosso Estado: E-26/100.456/2007), Conselho

Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq – Edital Universal: 472276/2006-9, PDJ: 151187/2009-6) and Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ). C.A.C.A. is a CNPq Research Fellow (158817/2010-9) and P.J.W. is a FAPERJ Research Fellow (E-26/152.913/2005). “
“Bill Harvey (Fig. 1) grew up in Vermont, and speaks fondly of the smell of maple sugaring in Springtime, as huge pans of freshly-tapped sap were boiled down to maple syrup. After a year in the US Navy, it was on to Tufts University, where he graduated Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in education in 1950. From there, Bill took a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to Edinburgh, where he received a B.Ed. So far, there was little indication of his future career trajectory.