Computational characterization of iron metabolism in the tsetse disease vector, glossina morsitans: Ire stem-loops
Date
2016Author
Dashti, Zahra Jalali Sefid
Gamieldien, Junaid
Christoffels, Alan
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Iron metabolism and regulation is an indispensable part of species survival, most importantly for
blood feeding insects. Iron regulatory proteins are central regulators of iron homeostasis, whose binding to iron
response element (IRE) stem-loop structures within the UTRs of genes regulate expression at the post-transcriptional level.
Despite the extensive literature on themechanism of iron regulation in human, less attention has been given to insect
and more specifically the blood feeding insects, where research has mainly focused on the characterization of ferritin and
transferrin. We thus, examined the mechanism of iron homeostasis through a genome-wide computational identification
of IREs and other enriched motifs in the UTRs of Glossina morsitans with the view to identify new IRE-regulated genes.