Abstract

Malaria continues to be a life threatening infectious disease throughout the tropical region of the world. APN1 is one of the best choices for developing new Malaria Transmission-blocking vaccines. In this study an attempt has been made to overview genome-wide identification of APN genes in Anopheles gambiae. A total of eighteen A. gambiae APN sequences were found that contain conserved HEXXH and GAMEN signature sequences, indicate that large numbers of APN isomers present in mosquitoes. Multiple APN paralogs exist as a gene cluster may propose that huge synthesis of APNs is required for rapid digestion of peptides over a brief period. Gene structure study shows high sequence variations among them. Protein-protein interactions show that APN1 is highly connected protein, supporting their role as hub with other five types of APNs involved in glutathione metabolism, act as hub protein and disruption of one of these proteins may affect the whole pathway.

Key words: Anopheles gambiae, Aminopeptidase N, Paralogous gene, Genome, Multigene, Evolution.