A Plant-Like Kinase in Plasmodium falciparum Regulates Parasite Egress from Erythrocytes
Top Cited Papers
- 14 May 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 328 (5980), 910-912
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1188191
Abstract
It's a Knockout: The malaria parasite is one of the most important pathogens of humans. Increasing drug-resistance is an imminent public health disaster, and we urgently need to find new drugs. The recently acquired malarial genomes provide a plethora of targets. However, due to the genetic intractability of the parasite, it has been difficult to identify essential genes in the clinically relevant blood-stage of the parasite. Dvorin et al. (p. 910 ) investigated the function of a Plasmodium falciparum plant-like calcium-dependent protein kinase, PfCDPK5, which is expressed in the invasive blood-stage forms of the parasite. A system for conditional protein expression allowed the production of a functional knockout in the bloodstream stage of the parasite. PfCDPK5 was required for parasite egress from the human host erythrocyte, an essential step in the parasite life cycle.Keywords
This publication has 23 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Malaria Parasite Cyclic GMP-Dependent Protein Kinase Plays a Central Role in Blood-Stage SchizogonyEukaryotic Cell, 2010
- Apicomplexan Parasites Co-Opt Host Calpains to Facilitate Their Escape from Infected CellsScience, 2009
- A multifunctional serine protease primes the malaria parasite for red blood cell invasionThe EMBO Journal, 2009
- A calpain unique to alveolates is essential in Plasmodium falciparum and its knockdown reveals an involvement in pre-S-phase developmentProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- Rapid Membrane Disruption by a Perforin-Like Protein Facilitates Parasite Exit from Host CellsScience, 2009
- Recent progress with FKBP-derived destabilizing domainsBioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 2008
- The Motor Complex of Plasmodium falciparumOnline Journal of Public Health Informatics, 2008
- Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans Provide a Signal to Plasmodium Sporozoites to Stop Migrating and Productively Invade Host CellsCell Host & Microbe, 2007
- Rapid control of protein level in the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondiiNature Methods, 2007
- A Rapid, Reversible, and Tunable Method to Regulate Protein Function in Living Cells Using Synthetic Small MoleculesCell, 2006