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Infection and Immunity, February 2002, p. 601-605, Vol. 70, No. 2
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.2.601-605.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Functional Specific Binding of Testosterone to Schistosoma haematobium 28-Kilodalton Glutathione S-Transferase {dagger}

Franck Remoué,1* Jean-Claude Mani,2 Martine Pugnière,2 Anne-Marie Schacht,1 André Capron,1 and Gilles Riveau1

Unité INSERM U547, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Lille,1 Faculté de Pharmacie, Unité CNRS UMR 9921, Montpellier, France2

Received 29 August 2001/ Accepted 6 November 2001

During parasitic disease such as schistosomiasis, sex hormones have an important influence on the age- and gender-dependent level of infection. Since mammal glutathione S-transferase (GST) has the ability to bind hormones and particularly sexual steroids to influence their transport, metabolism, and physiological action, we have evaluated the capacity of testosterone to bind the 28-kDa GST of the Schistosoma haematobium parasite (Sh28GST). For the first time, we have demonstrated a specific binding of testosterone to parasite GST protein with high affinity (Kd = 2.57 x 10-7 M). In addition, we have assessed the effect of this binding on Sh28GST enzymatic activity, a mechanism closely associated with the reduction of Schistosoma fecundity. We showed that testosterone has the functional ability to inhibit the Sh28GST enzymatic activity in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting that this hormone could be directly involved in an antifecundity mechanism. This effect seemed to be related to the binding of testosterone to one peptide involved in the enzymatic site (i.e., amino acids 24 to 43). During human infection, binding of sexual hormones to Schistosoma Sh28GST could play a key role in parasite metabolism, especially the decrease of fecundity, and could be involved in the sex-dependent immune response to Sh28GST that we have previously observed in infected adults.

* Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Anatomo-Pathology, B35, University of Liege, CHU Sart Tilman, 4000 Liege, Belgium. Phone: (32) 4 366 42 81. Fax: (32) 4 20 366 29 19. E-mail: franck.remoue{at}ulg.ac.be.

{dagger} In memory of our colleague Jean-Claude Mani.

Editor: W. A. Petri, Jr.

Infection and Immunity, February 2002, p. 601-605, Vol. 70, No. 2
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/IAI.70.2.601-605.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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