Additional research could also be undertaken to evaluate the effects of the DPP-4 inhibitor

This may explain tryptogalinin high affinity and multiple AZD-9668 serine Darapladib protease inhibition since part of its disorder extends from the N-terminus to the P1 interacting site compared with TdPI. Disorder is also predicted in the L2 region in proximity to the fourth Cys residue. Such mobility, however, might result into an induced fit recognition mechanism, therefore complicating any proteinprotein docking simulations. Since the TdPI-trypsin crystallographic structure has been solved, we attempted to predict the tryptogalinintrypsin complex by performing protein-protein docking. By combining computational and experimental methods we were able to functionally characterize a single Kunitz peptide from I. scapularis that displays modified target specificity when compared with another functionally characterized Kunitz peptide, TdPI. Regardless that these two peptides are secreted from ticks of two separate genera and geographically distinct regions, tryptogalinin and TdPI are closely related when phylogenetically compared with several functionally described Kunitz peptides from the Acari subclass. We show that tryptogalinin inhibits several serine proteases involved in inflammation and vertebrate immunity, which may facilitate tick blood feeding. Tryptogalinin has an atypical Nterminus compared with previously described Kunitz peptides that is also highly disordered. We hypothesize that the inhibitory profile of tryptogalinin is due to its intrinsic regional disorder, clearly shown in our molecular dynamics simulations. Conventional docking methods proved to be inadequate due to the conformational selection binding mechanism of tryptogalinin. A theoretical combination of molecular dynamics, superimposition to the TdPI crystal, coarse grain Monte Carlo protein-protein docking, and all-atom refinement procedure, provided an adequate tryptogalinin-trypsin complex. Our current findings add to the understanding of the molecular evolution of Kunitz peptides in ticks; more specifically, we show that the tick I. scapularis has acquired in its salivary secretion a protein with a rather modified Kunitz-fold. The sequence and folding divergence of tryptogalinin allowed the protein to retain its function as an HSTbinhibitor, while possessing an i