INTRODUCTION Since the genus Rhynchosciara belongs, like Chironomus, to the suborder Nematocera it will be very interesting to see if the formation of its salivary secretion proteins is similar to that of Chironomus secretion or to Bombyx silk biosynthesis . Moreover, this work will be of importance for a better understanding of the hemolymph protein function and will provide a basis for improv...

Glutamate decarboxylase or glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) is a protein associated with autoimmune diseases, including type-1 diabetes. This disease is primarily associated with the occurrence of a specific isoform: GAD65. Conversely, some specific peptides of this protein may block autoimmunity in diabetes. In this respect, understanding the relationship between GAD and the development of di...

The saliva of blood sucking insects contains potent pharmacologically active components that assist them in counteracting the host hemostatic and inflammatory systems during blood feeding. In addition, sand fly salivary proteins affect host immunity and have the potential to be a vaccine against Leishmania infection. In the present study, the salivary gland transcripts of Lutzomyia ayacuchensis...

Salivary gland proteins of the human malaria vector, Anopheles dirus B were determined and analyzed. The amount of salivary gland proteins in mosquitoes aged between 3--10 days was approximately 1.08 +/- 0.04 microg/female and 0.1 +/- 0.05 microg/male. The salivary glands of both sexes displayed the same morphological organization as that of other anopheline mosquitoes. In females, apyrase accu...

Our research group has been studying the design of intracellular delivery peptides based on cationic lytic peptides. By placing negatively charged amino acids potentially hydrophobic faces peptides, membrane activity is attenuated cell surface, whereas it recovers in endosomes, enabling cytosolic proteins including antibodies. These generally contain multiple lysines, facilitating surface inter...

INTRODUCTION Since the genus Rhynchosciara belongs, like Chironomus, to the suborder Nematocera it will be very interesting to see if the formation of its salivary secretion proteins is similar to that of Chironomus secretion or to Bombyx silk biosynthesis . Moreover, this work will be of importance for a better understanding of the hemolymph protein function and will provide a basis for improv...

The gustatory system plays a critical role in determining food preferences and food intake, in addition to nutritive, energy and electrolyte balance. Fine tuning of the gustatory system is also crucial in this respect. The exact mechanisms that fine tune taste sensitivity are as of yet poorly defined, but it is clear that various effects of saliva on taste recognition are also involved. Specifi...