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Category: publications

A limitation lifted: A conditional knockdown system reveals essential roles for Polo-like kinase and Aurora kinase 1 in Trypanosoma cruzi cell division

Donna Huber on February 18, 2025

While advances in genome editing technologies have simplified gene disruption in many organisms, the study of essential genes requires development of conditional disruption or knockdown systems that are not available in most organisms. Such is the case for Trypanosoma cruzi, a parasite that causes Chagas disease, a severely neglected tropical disease endemic to Latin America …

Combined fluorescent in situ hybridization and F- ara-EdU staining on whole mount Hymenolepis diminuta

Donna Huber on February 13, 2025

Hymenolepis diminuta is a parasitic tapeworm that utilizes rats as hosts and offers advantages over human parasitic tapeworms and free-living flatworms as a model system to study the biology and pathology of helminth infections. H. diminuta is minimally infectious to humans, easy to maintain in the lab, demonstrates impressive growth, regeneration, and reproductive capabilities, and is amenable to …

PfFBXO1 is essential for inner membrane complex formation in Plasmodium falciparum during both asexual and transmission stages

Donna Huber on February 7, 2025

Plasmodium species replicate via schizogony, which involves asynchronous nuclear divisions followed by semi-synchronous segmentation and cytokinesis. Successful segmentation requires a double-membranous structure known as the inner membrane complex (IMC). Here we demonstrate that PfFBXO1 (PF3D7_0619700) is critical for both asexual segmentation and gametocyte maturation. In Toxoplasma gondii, the FBXO1 homolog, TgFBXO1, is essential for the …

mSphere of Influence: Lighting up organellar communication in protozoan parasites

Donna Huber on February 6, 2025

Diego Huet works in molecular parasitology, focusing on the organellar biology of Toxoplasma gondii. In this mSphere of Influence article, he reflects on how the article “Efficient proximity labeling in living cells and organisms with turboID” (Branon et al., 2018) impacted his research and the strategies used to dissect inter-organellar interactions in T. gondii. Diego …

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 …

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 …