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Tag: Vasant Muralidharan

Ph.D. candidate Ale Villegas and advisor Vasant Muralidharan receive Gilliam Graduate Fellowship Award

Donna Huber on July 28, 2021

PhD Candidate Ale Villegas and Advisor Dr. Vasant Muralidharan (Photo Courtesy of Vasant Muralidharan) Malaria’s connection to Georgia goes back to the colonial period. The Southeastern United States provided prime conditions for a thriving mosquito population which ensured the spread of the disease. The state capital moved from Louisville to Milledgeville in 1806 in part because of …

Some conditions apply: Systems for studying Plasmodium falciparum protein function

Donna Huber on April 22, 2021

Fig 1. Conditional protein knockdown used throughout the Plasmodium falciparum life cycle. Malaria, caused by infection with Plasmodium parasites, remains a significant global health concern. For decades, genetic intractability and limited tools hindered our ability to study essential proteins and pathways in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite associated with the most severe malaria cases. However, recent …

A redox-active crosslinker reveals an essential and inhibitable oxidative folding network in the endoplasmic reticulum of malaria parasites

Donna Huber on February 3, 2021

Malaria remains a major global health problem, creating a constant need for research to identify druggable weaknesses in P. falciparum biology. As important components of cellular redox biology, members of the Thioredoxin (Trx) superfamily of proteins have received interest as potential drug targets in Apicomplexans. However, the function and essentiality of endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-localized Trx-domain …

Metabolomics profiling reveals new aspects of dolichol biosynthesis in Plasmodium falciparum

Donna Huber on August 6, 2020

The cis-polyisoprenoid lipids namely polyprenols, dolichols and their derivatives are linear polymers of several isoprene units. In eukaryotes, polyprenols and dolichols are synthesized as a mixture of four or more homologues of different length with one or two predominant species with sizes varying among organisms. Interestingly, co-occurrence of polyprenols and dolichols, i.e. detection of a …

Plastid Biogenesis in Malaria Parasites Requires the Interactions and Catalytic Activity of the Clp Proteolytic System

Donna Huber on June 2, 2020

The human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, contains an essential plastid called the apicoplast. Most apicoplast proteins are encoded by the nuclear genome and it is unclear how the plastid proteome is regulated. Here, we study an apicoplast-localized caseinolytic-protease (Clp) system and how it regulates organelle proteostasis. Using null and conditional mutants, we demonstrate that the P. falciparum Clp …

Directing Traffic: Chaperone-mediated protein transport in malaria parasites

Donna Huber on May 9, 2020

The ability of eukaryotic parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa to cause devastating diseases is predicated upon their ability to maintain faithful and precise protein trafficking mechanisms. Their parasitic life cycle depends on the trafficking of effector proteins to the infected host cell, transport of proteins to several critical organelles required for survival, as well as …

The ER chaperone PfGRP170 is essential for asexual development and is linked to stress response in malaria parasites

Donna Huber on May 14, 2019

The vast majority of malaria mortality is attributed to one parasite species: Plasmodium falciparum. Asexual replication of the parasite within the red blood cell is responsible for the pathology of the disease. In Plasmodium, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a central hub for protein folding and trafficking as well as stress response pathways. In this study, we tested …

Field evaluation of malaria malachite green loop-mediated isothermal amplification in health posts in Roraima state, Brazil

Donna Huber on March 25, 2019

Fig. 1 Summary of enrolled patients and sample processing BACKGROUND: Microscopic detection of malaria parasites is the standard method for clinical diagnosis of malaria in Brazil. However, malaria epidemiological surveillance studies specifically aimed at the detection of low-density infection and asymptomatic cases will require more sensitive and field-usable tools. The diagnostic accuracy of the colorimetric …