Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We cloned a guanylyl cyclase of 280 kDa from the ciliate Paramecium which has an N-terminus similar to that of a P-type ATPase and a C-terminus with a topology identical to mammalian adenylyl cyclases. Respective signature sequence motifs are conserved in both domains. The cytosolic catalytic C1a and C2a segments of the cyclase are inverted. Genes coding for topologically identical proteins with substantial sequence similarities have been cloned from Tetrahymena and were detected in sequences from Plasmodium deposited by the Malaria Genome Project. After 99 point mutations to convert the Paramecium TAA/TAG-Gln triplets to CAA/CAG, together with partial gene synthesis, the gene from Paramecium was heterologously expressed. In Sf9 cells, the holoenzyme is proteolytically processed into the two domains. Immunocytochemistry demonstrates expression of the protein in Paramecium and localizes it to cell surface membranes. The data provide a novel structural link between class III adenylyl and guanylyl cyclases and imply that the protozoan guanylyl cyclases evolved from an ancestral adenylyl cyclase independently of the mammalian guanylyl cyclase isoforms. Further, signal transmission in Ciliophora (Paramecium, Tetrahymena) and in the most important endoparasitic phylum Apicomplexa (Plasmodium) is, quite unexpectedly, closely related.
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PMID:Guanylyl cyclases with the topology of mammalian adenylyl cyclases and an N-terminal P-type ATPase-like domain in Paramecium, Tetrahymena and Plasmodium. 1042 60

The mechanism by which the intra-erythrocytic form of the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, extrudes H(+) ions and thereby regulates its cytosolic pH (pH(i)), was investigated using saponin-permeabilized parasitized erythrocytes. The parasite was able both to maintain its resting pH(i) and to recover from an imposed intracellular acidification in the absence of extracellular Na(+), thus ruling out the involvement of a Na(+)/H(+) exchanger in both processes. Both phenomena were ATP-dependent. Amiloride and the related compound ethylisopropylamiloride caused a substantial reduction in the resting pH(i) of the parasite, whereas EMD 96785, a potent and allegedly selective inhibitor of Na(+)/H(+) exchange, had relatively little effect. The resting pH(i) of the parasite was also reduced by the sulfhydryl reagent N-ethylmaleimide, by the carboxyl group blocker N,N'-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide, and by bafilomycin A(1), a potent inhibitor of V-type H(+)-ATPases. Bafilomycin A(1) blocked pH(i) recovery in parasites subjected to an intracellular acidification and reduced the rate of acidification of a weakly buffered solution by parasites under resting conditions. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that the malaria parasite, like other parasitic protozoa, has in its plasma membrane a V-type H(+)-ATPase, which serves as the major route for the efflux of H(+) ions.
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PMID:pH regulation in the intracellular malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. H(+) extrusion via a V-type H(+)-ATPase. 1055 94

Plasmodium berghei trophozoites were loaded with the fluorescent calcium indicator, fura-2 acetoxymethyl ester, to measure their intracellular Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)). [Ca(2+)](i) was increased in the presence of the sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-ATPase inhibitor, thapsigargin. Trophozoites also possess a significant amount of Ca(2+) stored in an acidic compartment. This was indicated by: (1) the increase in [Ca(2+)](i) induced by bafilomycin A(1), nigericin, monensin, or the weak base, NH(4)Cl, in the nominal absence of extracellular Ca(2+), and (2) the effect of ionomycin, which cannot take Ca(2+) out of acidic organelles and was more effective after alkalinization of this compartment by addition of bafilomycin A(1), nigericin, monensin, or NH(4)Cl. Inorganic PP(i) promoted the acidification of a subcellular compartment in cell homogenates of trophozoites. The proton gradient driven by PP(i) collapsed by addition of the K(+)/H(+) exchanger, nigericin, and eliminated by the PP(i) analogue, aminomethylenediphosphonate (AMDP). Both PP(i) hydrolysis and proton transport were dependent upon K(+), and Na(+) caused partial inhibition of these activities. PP(i) hydrolysis was sensitive in a dose-dependent manner to AMDP, imidodiphosphate, sodium fluoride, dicyclohexylcarbodi-imide and to the thiol reagent, N-ethylmaleimide. Immunofluorescence microscopy using antibodies raised against conserved peptide sequences of a plant vacuolar pyrophosphatase (V-H(+)-PPase) suggested that the proton pyrophosphatase is located in intracellular vacuoles and the plasma membrane of trophozoites. AMDP caused an increase in [Ca(2+)](i) in the nominal absence of extracellular Ca(2+). Ionomycin was more effective in releasing Ca(2+) from this acidic intracellular compartment after treatment of the cells with AMDP. Taken together, these results suggest the presence in malaria parasites of acidocalcisomes with similar characteristics to those described in trypanosomatids and Toxoplasma gondii, and the colocalization of the V-H(+)-PPase and V-H(+)-ATPase in these organelles.
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PMID:Acidocalcisomes and a vacuolar H+-pyrophosphatase in malaria parasites. 1072 25

Recent biochemical studies involving 2',7'-bis-(2-carboxyethyl)-5, 6-carboxylfluorescein (BCECF)-labeled saponin-permeabilized and parasitized erythrocytes indicated that malaria parasite cells maintain the resting cytoplasmic pH at about 7.3, and treatment with vacuolar proton-pump inhibitors reduces the resting pH to 6.7, suggesting proton extrusion from the parasite cells via vacuolar H(+)-ATPase (Saliba, K. J., and Kirk, K. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274, 33213-33219). In the present study, we investigated the localization of vacuolar H(+)-ATPase in Plasmodium falciparum cells infecting erythrocytes. Antibodies against vacuolar H(+)-ATPase subunit A and B specifically immunostained the infecting parasite cells and recognized a single 67- and 55-kDa polypeptide, respectively. Immunoelectron microscopy indicated that the immunological counterpart of V-ATPase subunits A and B is localized at the plasma membrane, small clear vesicles, and food vacuoles, a lower extent being detected at the parasitophorus vacuolar membrane of the parasite cells. We measured the cytoplasmic pH of both infected erythrocytes and invading malaria parasite cells by microfluorimetry using BCECF fluorescence. It was found that a restricted area of the erythrocyte cytoplasm near a parasite cell is slightly acidic, being about pH 6.9. The pH increased to pH 7.3 upon the addition of either concanamycin B or bafilomycin A(1), specific inhibitors of vacuolar H(+)-ATPase. Simultaneously, the cytoplasmic pH of the infecting parasite cell decreased from pH 7.3 to 7.1. Neither vanadate at 0.5 mm, an inhibitor of P-type H(+)-ATPase, nor ethylisopropylamiloride at 0.2 mm, an inhibitor of Na(+)/H(+)-exchanger, affected the cytoplasmic pH of erythrocytes or infecting parasite cells. These results constitute direct evidence that plasma membrane vacuolar H(+)-ATPase is responsible for active extrusion of protons from the parasite cells.
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PMID:Vacuolar H(+)-ATPase localized in plasma membranes of malaria parasite cells, Plasmodium falciparum, is involved in regional acidification of parasitized erythrocytes. 1091 84

A chloroplast-like organelle is present in many species of the Apicomplexa phylum. We have previously demonstrated that the plastid organelle of Plasmodium faciparum is essential to the survival of the blood-stage malaria parasite in culture. One known function of the plastid organelle in another Apicomplexan, Toxoplasma gondii, involves the formation of the parasitophorous vacuole. The effects of interruption of plastid function on sporozoites and sexual-stage parasites have not been investigated. In our previous studies of the effects of thiostrepton, a polypeptide antibiotic from streptococcus spp., on erythrocytic schizongony of the human malaria P. falciparium, we found that this antibiotic appears to interact with the guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) binding domain of the organellar large subunit ribosomal RNA, as it does in bacteria. We investigate here the effects of this drug on life-cycle stages of the malaria parasite in vivo. Preincubation of mature infective sporozoites with thiostrepton has no observable effect on their infectivity. Sporozoite infection both by mosquito bite and sporozoite injection was prevented by pretreatment of mice with thiostrepton. Thiostrepton eliminates infection with erythrocytic forms of Plasmodium berghei in mice. Clearance of infected red blood cells follows the delayed kinetics associated with drugs that interact with the apicoplast. Thiostrepton treatment of infected mice reduces transmission of parasites by more than ten-fold, indicating that the plastid has a role in sexual development of the parasite. These results indicate that the plastid function is accessible to drug action in vivo and important to the development of both sexual and asexual forms of the parasite.
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PMID:Effects of interruption of apicoplast function on malaria infection, development, and transmission. 1092 53

Analysis of the mRNA capping apparatus of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum illuminates an evolutionary connection to fungi rather than metazoans. We show that P. falciparum encodes separate RNA guanylyltransferase (Pgt1) and RNA triphosphatase (Prt1) enzymes and that the triphosphatase component is a member of the fungal/viral family of metal-dependent phosphohydrolases, which are structurally and mechanistically unrelated to the cysteine-phosphatase-type RNA triphosphatases found in metazoans and plants. These results highlight the potential for discovery of mechanism-based antimalarial drugs designed to specifically block the capping of Plasmodium mRNAs. A simple heuristic scheme of eukaryotic phylogeny is suggested based on the structure and physical linkage of the triphosphatase and guanylyltransferase enzymes that catalyze cap formation.
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PMID:A yeast-like mRNA capping apparatus in Plasmodium falciparum. 1124 30

Molecular studies of insect disease vectors are of paramount importance for understanding parasite-vector relationship. Advances in this area have led to important findings regarding changes in vectors' physiology upon blood feeding and parasite infection. Mechanisms for interfering with the vectorial capacity of insects responsible for the transmission of diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease and dengue fever are being devised with the ultimate goal of developing transgenic insects. A primary necessity for this goal is information on gene expression and control in the target insect. Our group is investigating molecular aspects of the interaction between Leishmania parasites and Lutzomyia sand flies. As an initial step in our studies we have used random sequencing of cDNA clones from two expression libraries made from head/thorax and abdomen of sugar fed L. longipalpis for the identification of expressed sequence tags (EST). We applied differential display reverse transcriptase-PCR and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR to characterize differentially expressed mRNA from sugar and blood fed insects, and, in one case, from a L. (V.) braziliensis-infected L. longipalpis. We identified 37 cDNAs that have shown homology to known sequences from GeneBank. Of these, 32 cDNAs code for constitutive proteins such as zinc finger protein, glutamine synthetase, G binding protein, ubiquitin conjugating enzyme. Three are putative differentially expressed cDNAs from blood fed and Leishmania-infected midgut, a chitinase, a V-ATPase and a MAP kinase. Finally, two sequences are homologous to Drosophila melanogaster gene products recently discovered through the Drosophila genome initiative.
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PMID:Characterization of constitutive and putative differentially expressed mRNAs by means of expressed sequence tags, differential display reverse transcriptase-PCR and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR from the sand fly vector Lutzomyia longipalpis. 1128 81

The mRNA capping apparatus of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei consists of separately encoded RNA triphosphatase and RNA guanylyltransferase enzymes. The triphosphatase TbCet1 is a member of a new family of metal-dependent phosphohydrolases that includes the RNA triphosphatases of fungi and the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The protozoal/fungal enzymes are structurally and mechanistically unrelated to the RNA triphosphatases of metazoans and plants. These results highlight the potential for discovery of broad spectrum antiprotozoal and antifungal drugs that selectively block the capping of pathogen-encoded mRNAs. We propose a scheme of eukaryotic phylogeny based on the structure of RNA triphosphatase and its physical linkage to the guanylyltransferase component of the capping apparatus.
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PMID:Trypanosoma brucei RNA triphosphatase. Antiprotozoal drug target and guide to eukaryotic phylogeny. 1155 45

In this review we give an account of transport processes occurring at the membrane interface that separates the asexual stage of Plasmodium falciparum from its host, the infected erythrocyte, and also describe proteins whose activities may be important at this location. We explain the potential clinical value of such studies in the light of the current spread of parasite resistance to conventional antimalarial strategies. We discuss the uptake of substrates critical to the survival of the intracellular malaria parasite, and also the parasite's homeostatic and disposal mechanisms. The use of the Xenopus laevis expression system in the characterisation of a hexose transporter ("PfHT1") and a Ca(2+) ATPase ("PfATP4") of the parasite plasma membrane are described in detail.
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PMID:Transport proteins of Plasmodium falciparum: defining the limits of metabolism. 1156 1

A scheme of eukaryotic phylogeny has been suggested based on the structure and physical linkage of the enzymes that catalyze mRNA cap formation. Here we show that the intracellular parasite Encephalitozoon cuniculi encodes a complete mRNA capping apparatus consisting of separate triphosphatase (EcCet1), guanylyltransferase (EcCeg1), and methyltransferase (Ecm1) enzymes, which we characterize biochemically and genetically. The triphosphatase EcCet1 belongs to a metal-dependent phosphohydrolase family that includes the triphosphatase components of the capping apparatus of fungi, DNA viruses, and the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. These enzymes are structurally and mechanistically unrelated to the metal-independent cysteine phosphatase-type RNA triphosphatases found in metazoans and plants. Our findings support the proposed evolutionary connection between microsporidia and fungi, and they place fungi and protozoa in a common lineage distinct from that of metazoans and plants. RNA triphosphatase presents an attractive target for antiprotozoal/antifungal drug development.
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PMID:Characterization of the mRNA capping apparatus of the microsporidian parasite Encephalitozoon cuniculi. 1168 93


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