Figure 3

Tertiary structures of tick salivary cystatins. Panel A displays predicted tertiary structure of a cystatin from spider venom (JZTX75; GenBank: ABY71743) and, from tick salivary glands, we present three predicted cystatin structures (GenBank: ACX53922, JAA72252 and Hlcyst2-ABV71390) and three crystal structures (PDBs: OmC2-3L0R; sialostatinL-3LI7; sialostatinL2-3LH4). The tertiary structures depict the conserved disulfide bridges (indicated by roman numerals), β-sheets, the α-helix, and the inhibitory loop regions (1-3). All structures are colored from the N-terminus (blue) to the C-terminus (red). Below each tertiary structure is the respective electrostatic potential in 180° turns (blue = positive; red = negative; white = neutral). A tertiary structural alignment in Panel B depicts the Cα protein backbone (color codes for each structure is presented on the right). (Note: For Panel A we used the C-terminus domain for sialostatinL).