Gelatin was included as a negative control. PLG bound to leptospires and to several recombinant proteins, acting selleck compound as PLG receptor, can acquire proteolytic activity in the presence of an activator, as we have previously shown [17–19, 21]. Therefore, we investigated whether Lsa33 bound to PLG could also generate the enzymatically active plasmin.

As a negative control, we have included the recombinant protein Lsa63, previously shown to be non-reactive with PLG [21]. Microplates were coated with the test protein, blocked, and then incubated with PLG. Unbound PLG was washed away and the urokinase – type PLG activator (uPA) was added together with a plasmin – specific chromogenic substrate. The reaction was carried out overnight and the plasmin activity was evaluated by measuring the cleavage of the substrate (absorbance at 405 nm). As shown in Figure 6D, the PLG captured by the Lsa33 protein could be converted into plasmin, as demonstrated indirectly by specific STAT inhibitor proteolytic activity. The negative controls Lsa63 and BSA did not show any proteolytic activity, similar

to the controls lacking PLG, uPA or the chromogenic substrate. The interaction of recombinant proteins with C4bp was studied in function of protein concentration. We have employed anti –Lsa33 and anti-Lsa25 polyclonal (Figure 6E) and anti-His tag monoclonal antibodies (Figure 6F) to probe the binding. Dose – response curves were obtained with both antibodies but the best response was achieved with anti-His tag monoclonal

(Figure 6F), probably because of their homogeneous nature. However, C4bp was not saturated with the protein concentration range employed and therefore the K D could not be calculated. Lsa63, a His – tag recombinant protein that does not bind C4bp was also included, as a negative control, showed very low interaction and did not respond to increase protein concentration. Inhibition of L. interrogans attachment to laminin or to PLG by Lsa33 and Lsa25 It has been reported that the several recombinant proteins with adhesin activity revealed an inhibitory effect on the Proteasome inhibitor Binding of leptospires to ECM macromolecules [6]. We therefore performed experiments to assess whether P-type ATPase the recombinant proteins had an effect on the binding of Leptospira to laminin or PLG by employing ELISA to detect the interaction in function of protein concentration (0–10 μg). The results demonstrate that the addition of increasing concentrations of Lsa33 reduced the leptospiral binding to laminin and to PLG molecules in a dose – dependent manner (Figure 7A). Binding decrease in the number of leptospires interacting to laminin and PLG was statistically significant with 1.25 μg of Lsa33 (*, P < 0.05). This interference was also evaluated with the binding of leptospires to laminin in the presence of increasing concentrations of Lsa25 (0–10 μg), resulting in a similar effect as obtained with Lsa33 (*, P < 0.05) (Figure 7B).