AMPLIFICATION OF GENOMIC DNA FRAGMENTS OF SARCOCYSTIS-MURIS (APICOMPLEXA) CYST MEROZOITES ENCODING A THIOL (CYSTEINE) PROTEINASE

Parasites of the phylum Apicomplexa (Sporozoa) cause diseases such as malaria, toxoplasmosis. or intestinal coccidiosis. Invasive stages pos sess typical apical organelles such as dense granules that harbor a br oad range of polypeptides that are believed to take part in the parasi te-host cell interaction, In previous studies a 26-kDa polypeptide of dense granules from Sarcocystis muris cyst merozoites (bradyzoites) wa s characterized as a thiol (cysteine) proteinase. In this paper a meth od is demonstrated to amplify DNA fragments from genomic DNA of S. mur is cyst merozoites by polymerase chain reaction. which probably code f or the 26-kDa antigen.