A bio-informatics study of the c25 cysteine protease family

The oral pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis is recog-nized as one of the major aetiological agents of chronic periodontitis. The gingipains, which are the principal virulence factors of P. gingivalis, are mul-ti-domain proteins containing an N-terminal C25 cysteine protease domain. We have conducted a bio-informatics study of the C25 cysteine protease domains and have identified related domains in over two thousand proteins from 739 organisms in 35 dis-tinct phyla. Proteins having significant similarity to the gingipain C25 cysteine protease domain are also found in Gram +ve bacteria, Archaea, algae, higher fungi, and a wide variety of Eukaryotic species