ISSN:
0886-1544
Keywords:
malaria
;
Plasmodium falciparum
;
merozoite
;
actin
;
ubiquitin
;
Life and Medical Sciences
;
Cell & Developmental Biology
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Merozoites of the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, when treated with cytochalasin B, will attach irreversibly to red cells with formation of a vestigial internal (parasitophorous) vacuole, but they are inhibited from moving into the cell. The existence of an actin-based motile mechanism is implied. Immunoblotting, peptide mapping and the DNase inhibition assay have been used to show that the merozoite contains actin. It makes up an estimated 0.3% of the total parasite protein and is partitioned in the ratio of about 1:2 between the cytosolic and particulate protein fractions. In the former it is unpolymerised and in the latter filamentous. Most of the anti-actin-reactive protein in the soluble fraction and about 20% of that in the pellet has an apparent molecular weight of 55,000 and reacts with an anti-ubiquitin antibody; it is thus evidently ubiquitinyl actin, or arthrin, which has so far been detected only in insect flight muscle. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Additional Material:
5 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cm.970250106
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