Transcriptional profile of processing machinery of 3′ end of mRNA in Trichomonas vaginalis

Trichomonas vaginalis is the causative agent of trichomonosis, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that affects over 180 million people worldwide. This parasite is capable to infect the urogenital tract of women and men, both microenvironments might affect the expression of key genes that may be involved in the parasite pathogenesis. The processing of 3′ end of mRNA promotes mRNA stability in many eukaryotes, however in T. vaginalis this molecular machinery is under research. By means of an in silico analysis we identified putative proteins of the 3′ end mRNA processing machinery of T. vaginalis, and by RT-PCR assays we evaluated the expression of eight of these genes in a female and male T. vaginalis isolates. According to the in silico analysis, the T. vaginalis 3′ end mRNA processing machinery, comprises a similar complex and protein factors that those described in Homo sapiens, Arabidopsis thaliana, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Entamoeba histolytica. The complex contains several sub-complexes, including cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (CPSF), cleavage stimulation factor (CstF), cleavage factor I (CFIm) and cleavage factor II (CFIIm). We demonstrated that genes tvpsf2p, tvcfi25, tvcpsf160, tvcpsf73, tvfip1, tvpap1, tvpc4 and tvpabp are expressed in male or female T. vaginalis isolates. Besides we identify two different isoforms of TvPC4. T. vaginalis genome contains most of genes encoding for 3′ end mRNA processing, which may be transcriptionally active and could be involved in the capping, splicing, cleavage and polyadenylation of mRNAs in this parasite. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the biological meaning of our findings.