Determining the protein repertoire of Cryptosporidium parvum sporozoites

The genome of the intracellular parasite Cryptosporidium parvum has recently been sequenced, but protein expression data for the invasive stages of this important zoonotic gastrointestinal pathogen are limited. In this paper a comprehensive analysis of the expressed protein repertoire of an excysted oocyst/sporozoite preparation of C. parvum is presented. Three independent proteome platforms were employed which yielded more than 4800 individual protein identifications representing 1237 nonredundant proteins, corresponding to similar to 30% of the predicted proteome. Peptide data were mapped to the corresponding locations on the C. parvum genome and a publicly accessible interface for proteome data was developed for data-mining and visualisation at CryptoDB (http://cryptodb.org). These data provide a timely and valuable resource for improved annotation of the genome, verification of predicted hypothetical proteins and identification of proteins not predicted by current gene models. The data indicated the expression of proteins likely to be important to the invasion and intracellular establishment of the parasite, including surface proteins, constituents of the remnant mitochondrion and apical organelles. Comparison of the expressed proteome with existing transcriptional data indicated only a weak correlation. For approximately half the proteome there was limited functional and structural information, highlighting the limitations in the current understanding of Cryptosporidium biology.