Fig. 4

Identification of calcareous corpuscle (CC) binding proteins of T. solium metacestode (TsM). a SDS-PAGE analysis of protein repertoire of CC. CC was purified from TsM cellular compartments using a Ficoll-Plaque gradient sedimentation. Cyst fluid (CF) and scolex/neck (SN) proteins (10 μg each) were incubated with the purified CC (10 μl). The CC-protein complex was washed with PBS, precipitated by centrifugation and resuspended in 2× SDS-PAGE sample buffer. Proteins were separated by 15% SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions. The gel was stained with CBB. Binding partners (marked by 1–16) were subjected to protein identification by LC-ESI-MS/MS. Identified proteins are listed in Additional file 3: Table S1. Lane CF: cyst fluid (10 μg) only; Lane CC + CF: CC (10 μl) was incubated with CF (10 μg); Lane CC: calcareous corpuscle only (10 μl); Lane SN: scolex/neck protein only (10 μg); Lane CC + SN: CC (10 μl) was incubated with SN protein (10 μg). Abbreviation: M _r. molecular weight in kDa. Functional categorization of identified proteins from CF (b) or scolex/neck (c). Gene ontology terms assigned to the biological process, molecular function and cellular component were analyzed by Blast2GO on the basis of similarity pattern employing the second-level of GO hierarchy [28]. The number of identified proteins in each functional group is shown in histogram