{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,12]],"date-time":"2025-09-12T19:06:24Z","timestamp":1757703984431,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,15]],"date-time":"2022-02-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1644883200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100005825","name":"National Institute of Food and Agriculture","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100005825","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000865","name":"Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000865","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Vet. Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bovine babesiosis, caused by <jats:italic>Babesia bovis<\/jats:italic>, is an economically significant tick-borne disease that imposes restrictions to livestock production worldwide. Current methods to control bovine babesiosis have severe limitations and novel approaches, including transmission-blocking vaccines, are needed. Members of the widely conserved CCp family are multidomain adhesion proteins containing LCCL motifs, which are differentially expressed on gametocytes of apicomplexans, including <jats:italic>Babesia<\/jats:italic> spp. and <jats:italic>Plasmodium<\/jats:italic> spp. While <jats:italic>Plasmodium<\/jats:italic> parasites contain 6 distinct <jats:italic>CCp<\/jats:italic> genes, only three members (CCp 1-3) were previously identified in <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic>. In this study, we describe the identification and characterization of two novel non-canonical members of the <jats:italic>CCp<\/jats:italic> gene family in <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic>, named CCp5 and FNPA. The genes were identified <jats:italic>in silico<\/jats:italic> by TBLASTN using <jats:italic>P. falciparum<\/jats:italic> CCp family domains as queries. Unlike CCp1-3, the <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic> CCp5 and FNPA proteins lack the LCCL canonical domain but contain other typical multidomain adhesion motifs which are present in classical CCp proteins. In addition, the <jats:italic>B. bovis CCp5<\/jats:italic> and <jats:italic>FNPA<\/jats:italic> are in synteny with known <jats:italic>CCp<\/jats:italic> genes in related apicomplexans. Sequence analysis of these two proteins demonstrated high sequence conservation among <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic> different isolates. Transcription, immunoblot, and immunofluorescence analyses demonstrated expression of CCp5 and FNPA in blood and <jats:italic>in vitro<\/jats:italic> induced sexual stages of <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic>. The FNPA, in contrast to CCp5, has a predicted transmembrane domain, suggesting that it might be expressed in the surface of sexual stage parasites. Altogether, finding of this study support FNPA as a possible target of a transmission-blocking vaccine against <jats:italic>B. bovis<\/jats:italic>.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fvets.2022.833183","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,2,15]],"date-time":"2022-02-15T14:37:25Z","timestamp":1644935845000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Identification of CCp5 and FNPA as Novel Non-canonical Members of the CCp Protein Family in Babesia bovis"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Sezayi","family":"Ozubek","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Heba F.","family":"Alzan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Reginaldo G.","family":"Bastos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jacob 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