EMBO J
Department of Biology, 305 Goddard Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Published: February 2001
Apicomplexan parasites--including the causative agents of malaria (Plasmodium sp.) and toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma gondii)--harbor a secondary endosymbiotic plastid, acquired by lateral genetic transfer from a eukaryotic alga. The apicoplast has attracted considerable attention, both as an evolutionary novelty and as a potential target for chemotherapy. We report a recombinant fusion (between a nuclear-encoded apicoplast protein, the green fluorescent protein and a rhoptry protein) that targets to the apicoplast but grossly alters its morphology, preventing organellar segregation during parasite division. Apicoplast-deficient parasites replicate normally in the first infectious cycle and can be isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting, but die in the subsequent host cell, confirming the 'delayed death' phenotype previously described pharmacologically, and validating the apicoplast as essential for parasite viability.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC133478 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/emboj/20.3.330 | DOI Listing |
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