IN SILICO CLASSIFICATION AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTEIN TYROSINE PHOSPHATASES FROM AEDES AEGYPTI

Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) are essential regulators involved in intracellular signaling pathways, playing a central role in several fundamental cellular processes. Among these, they are particularly important for controlling cell cycle progression and responding to stress, which they mediate through mechanisms involving reversible phosphorylation. Although the PTP system has been extensively studied and is well characterized in humans, the equivalent system in disease-transmitting arthropods remains largely uncharacterized and poorly understood. In the present study, we conducted an extensive in silico characterization of the PTPs found in the mosquito Aedes aegypti in genome data bank. Through this analysis, we successfully identified a total of 30 PTPs. These were distributed in the known categories, including the classical PTPs: cytosolic PTPs and receptor PTPs; and dual-specificity phosphatases. Gene expression analyses revealed some phosphatases being predominantly expressed in specific tissues, including 14 in the ovaries, 7 in the head, and 2 in the mosquito's intestine. Furthermore, we observed expression shifts in selected PTPs following blood feeding, implying a potential connection between these phosphatases and physiological mechanisms related to hematophagy. Structural modeling combined with orthology analysis allowed us to identify 14 PTPs that contain conserved domains homologous to those found in human proteins. Notably, two specific proteins, AAEL014408 and AAEL020302, were identified as homologs of the human phosphatases Cdc25A and DUSP22, respectively. These homologous mosquito proteins exhibited conserved structural motifs and were expressed in tissues considered to be functionally relevant. In addition, molecular docking simulations supported the hypothesis of functional conservation by predicting interactions between these mosquito PTPs and known human target proteins such as CDK2 and FAK. They also highlight key candidate enzymes that warrant further investigation in future studies focused on vector biology and may serve as promising molecular targets for the development of mosquito control strategies.