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Author: Donna Huber

Novel antibodies detect nucleocytoplasmic O-fucose in protist pathogens, cellular slime molds, and plants

Donna Huber on February 6, 2025

Cellular adaptations to change often involve post-translational modifications of nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins. An example found in protists and plants is the modification of serine and threonine residues of dozens to hundreds of nucleocytoplasmic proteins with a single fucose (O-fucose). A nucleocytoplasmic O-fucosyltransferase occurs in the pathogen Toxoplasma gondii, the social amoeba Dictyostelium, and higher …

Toxoplasma chitinase-like protein orchestrates cyst wall glycosylation to facilitate effector export and cyst turnover

Donna Huber on January 29, 2025

  Toxoplasma bradyzoites reside in tissue cysts that undergo cycles of expansion, rupture, and release to foster chronic infection. The glycosylated cyst wall acts as a protective barrier, although the processes responsible for formation, remodeling, and turnover are not understood. Herein, we identify a noncanonical chitinase-like enzyme TgCLP1 that localizes to micronemes and is targeted …

Stereospecific Resistance to N2-Acyl Tetrahydro-β-carboline Antimalarials Is Mediated by a PfMDR1 Mutation That Confers Collateral Drug Sensitivity

Donna Huber on January 14, 2025

Half the world’s population is at risk of developing a malaria infection, which is caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Currently, resistance has been identified to all clinically available antimalarials, highlighting an urgent need to develop novel compounds and better understand common mechanisms of resistance. We previously identified a novel tetrahydro-β-carboline compound, PRC1590, which …

The Life & Times of the SchistoKid – People, Parasites, and Plagues podcast

Donna Huber on January 2, 2025

Daniel Colley visits a car wash in Kisumu, Kenya, one of his study sites for more than 20 years. Workers at the car wash drive vehicles into Lake Victoria, infecting and reinfecting themselves with schistosomiasis. (Photo courtesy of SCORE) Professor Emeritus Daniel Colley is the featured guest on the People, Parasites, and Plagues podcast. Learn …

Mono-allelic epigenetic regulation of polycistronic transcription initiation by RNA polymerase II in Trypanosoma brucei

Donna Huber on December 20, 2024

Unique for a eukaryote, protein-coding genes in trypanosomes are arranged in polycistronic transcription units (PTUs). This genome arrangement has led to a model where Pol II transcription of PTUs is unregulated and changes in gene expression are entirely post-transcriptional. Trypanosoma brucei brucei is unable to infect humans because of its susceptibility to an innate immune complex, trypanosome …

A new chromosome-level genome assembly and annotation of Cryptosporidium meleagridis

Donna Huber on December 18, 2024

  Cryptosporidium spp. are medically and scientifically relevant protozoan parasites that cause severe diarrheal illness in infants, immunosuppressed populations and many animals. Although most human Cryptosporidium infections are caused by C. parvum and C. hominis, there are several other human-infecting species including C. meleagridis, which are commonly observed in developing countries. Here, we annotated a …

Spirocyclic iridoid alkaloids from Plumeria rubra

Donna Huber on December 13, 2024

Plumerianoids A-D (1-4) with a new intact spirocyclic iridoid alkaloid skeleton, along with a new degraded alkaloid 8-epi-plumerianine (5), and a known one (6), were isolated and characterized from Plumeria rubra. The structure of 6 was revised as (8R,13S)-plumerianine. These alkaloids consist of three epimeric pairs (1/2, 3/4, and 5/6), exhibiting virtually identical NMR spectra within …

The Toxoplasma gondii homolog of ATPase inhibitory factor 1 is critical for mitochondrial cristae maintenance and stress response

Donna Huber on November 27, 2024

The production of energy in the form of ATP by the mitochondrial ATP synthase must be tightly controlled. One well-conserved form of regulation is mediated via ATPase inhibitory factor 1 (IF1), which governs ATP synthase activity and gene expression patterns through a cytoprotective process known as mitohormesis. In apicomplexans, the processes regulating ATP synthase activity …

A pathway for skin NTD diagnostic development

Donna Huber on November 25, 2024

  The present document outlines the next steps recommended by the Skin NTDs subgroup of the DTAG to operationalise individual disease TPPs and to advance the NTD road map approach of scaling up integrated approaches to skin NTDs. Michael Marks, Sundeep Chaitanya Vedithi, Wendy W J van de Sande, Bruno Levecke, Anthony W Solomon, Kingsley …