A BABESIA-BOVIS 225-KILODALTON PROTEIN LOCATED ON THE CYTOPLASMIC SIDE OF THE ERYTHROCYTE-MEMBRANE HAS SEQUENCE SIMILARITY WITH A REGION OF GLYCOGEN-PHOSPHORYLASE

A Babesia bovis gene sequence is described which encodes a geographically conserved epitope (recognized by monoclonal antibody (mAb) 23.8.34) of a 225-kDa protein located on the surface of merozoites and associated with the infected erythrocyte membrane. The gene sequence, derived from both genomic and cDNA copies, is 2044 bp long and has one long Open reading frame encoding about one third of the 225-kDa protein. The open reading frame is expressed in an approximately 6 400 nucleotide RNA transcript. A 73-amino acid sequence occurs as 4 complete and 1 partial tandem repeats at the carboxy terminus of the partial protein sequence. The epitope recognized by mAb 23.8.34 was localized to the repeat region. Based on epitope localization with mAb 23.8.34, the repeat was exposed on the surface of merozoites and located near the cytoplasmic face of the erythrocyte membrane. The amino terminus of the protein was non-repetitive and had 21% identity (60% similarity) to glycogen phosphorylase over a region of 151 amino acids. In addition, the corresponding 5' DNA sequence hybridized to as many as 8 restriction fragments on Southern blots of genomic DNA. In contrast, the DNA sequence of the repeat hybridized to a single fragment. Both the repeat and multiple non-repeat DNA sequences were detected in a different geographic strain of B. bovis. These results indicate that the 5' end of the 225-kDa protein gene is related to a larger gene family, independent of the 3' end of the gene encoding the repeat.