23Eudiplozoon nipponicum (Goto, 1891) is a hematophagous monogenean ectoparasite 24 which inhabits the gills of the common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Heavy infestation can lead to 25 anemia and in conjunction with secondary bacterial infections cause poor health and eventual 26 death of the host. 27 This study is based on an innovative approach to protein localization which has never 28 been used in parasitology before. Using laser capture microdissection, we dissected particular 29 areas of the parasite body without contaminating the samples by surrounding tissue, and in 30 combination with analysis by mass spectrometry obtained tissue-specific proteomes of 31 tegument, intestine, and parenchyma of our model organism, E. nipponicum. We successfully 32 verified the presence of certain functional proteins (e.g. cathepsin L) in tissues where their 33 presence was expected (intestine) and confirmed that there were no traces of these proteins in 34 other tissues (tegument and parenchyma). Additionally, we identified a total of 2,059 proteins, 35 including 72 peptidases and 33 peptidase inhibitors. As expected, the greatest variety was found 36 in the intestine and the lowest variety in the parenchyma.
37Our results are significant on two levels. Firstly, we demonstrated how one can localize 38 all proteins in one analysis and without using laboratory animals (antibodies for 39 immunolocalization of single proteins). Secondly, this study offers the first complex proteomic 40 data on not only the E. nipponicum but within the whole class of Monogenea, which was from 41 this point of view until recently neglected. 42 3 43 Introduction 44 Laser-capture microdissection (LCM) was developed as a powerful and reliable tool to 45 overcome the heterogeneity of the specimen [1]. It enables isolation of specific tissues, 46 individual cells, or even individual organelles from complex samples based on cell morphology 47 [2,3]. The method was first described in the second half of the 20 th century and since then further 48 developed and modified [2,4-7]. Nowadays, LCM combines laser excision with high-resolution 49 microscopic control, which makes it possible to precisely capture for instance individual cells 50 or even only nucleus while keeping track of the location and morphology of the source tissue 51 [2,3,8]. 52 LCM technology has been used in a wide variety of applications with focus on genomic, 53 transcriptomic, and even proteomic analyses, such as dissection of polar bodies from oocytes 54 for pre-fertilization genetic diagnosis [9], transcriptome-wide analysis of blood vessels from 55 human skin and wound-edge tissue [10], proteomic profiling of dentoalveolar tissues [11], and 56 many other areas [12-14]. But only one study so far used a combination of LCM and mass 57 spectrometry (MS) to localize unique proteins, potential biomarkers, when dealing with the 58 heterogeneity of breast tumor [15]. 59 LCM has also been used in parasitology, especially in sample preparation. Recent 60 studies employed this method in...