Journal
MOLECULAR AND BIOCHEMICAL PARASITOLOGY
Volume 159, Issue 1, Pages 69-72Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.molbiopara.2008.01.005
Keywords
malaria; Plasmodium berghei; merozoite surface proteins; MSP8; gene knockout
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Funding
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust Funding Source: Medline
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Merozoite surface protein 8 (MSP8) has shown promise as a vaccine candidate in the Plasmodium yoelii rodent malaria model and has a proposed role in merozoite invasion of erythrocytes. However, the temporal expression and localisation of MSP8 are unusual for a merozoite antigen. Moreover, in Plasmodium falciparum the MSP8 gene could be disrupted with no apparent effect on in vitro growth. To address the in vivo function of full-length MSP8, we truncated MSP8 in the rodent parasite Plasmodium berghei. Pb Delta MSP8 disruptant parasites displayed a normal blood-stage growth rate but no increase in reticulocyte preference, a phenomenon observed in P. yoelii MSP8 vaccinated mice. Expression levels of erythrocyte surface antigens were similar in P. berghei wild-type and Pb Delta MSP8-infected erythrocytes, suggesting that a parasitophorous vacuole function for MSP8 does not involve global trafficking of such antigens. These data demonstrate that a full-length membrane-associated form of PbMSP8 is not essential for blood-stage growth. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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