Trypsin-like proteins of the fungi as possible markers of pathogenicity.

Sequences of peptidases with conserved motifs around the active site residues that are characteristic of trypsins (similar to trypsin peptidases, STP) were obtained from publicly-available fungal genomes and related databases. Among the 75 fungal genomes, 29 species of parasitic Ascomycota contained genes encoding STP and their homologs. Searches of non-redundant protein sequences, patented protein sequences, and expressed sequence tags resulted in another 18 STP sequences in 10 fungal species from Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Zygomycota.