...Luisa F. Arias Padilla; Jonathan Munera Lopez; Aika Shibata; John M. Murray; Ke Hu ABSTRACT The body plan of the human parasite Toxoplasma gondii has a well-defined polarity. The minus ends of the 22 cortical microtubules are anchored to the apical polar ring, which is a putative microtubule...

... and inner nuclear membranes and connects the nucleus to the cytoskeleton. In opisthokonts, it is composed of Klarsicht, ANC-1 and Syne homology (KASH) domain proteins and Sad1 and UNC-84 (SUN) domain proteins. Given that the nucleus is positioned at the posterior pole of Toxoplasma gondii , we speculated...

...Isadonna F. Tengganu; Luisa F. Arias Padilla; Jonathan Munera Lopez; Jun Liu; Peter T. Brown; John M. Murray; Ke Hu ABSTRACT Motility is essential for apicomplexan parasites to infect their hosts. In a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii moves along...

... the mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER). We identify VDAC of the pathogenic apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii and demonstrate its importance for parasite growth. We show that VDAC is involved in protein import and metabolite transfer to mitochondria. Further, depletion of VDAC resulted in significant...

...Jacqueline M. Leung; Jun Liu; Laura A. Wetzel; Ke Hu ABSTRACT Centrins are EF-hand containing proteins ubiquitously found in eukaryotes and are key components of centrioles/basal bodies as well as certain contractile fibers. We previously identified three centrins in the human parasite Toxoplasma...

...Chun-Ti Chen; Marc-Jan Gubbels Summary The pathology and severity of toxoplasmosis results from the rapid replication cycle of the apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii . The tachyzoites divide asexually through endodyogeny, wherein two daughter cells bud inside the mother cell. Before mitosis...

...Violaine Delorme-Walker; Marie Abrivard; Vanessa Lagal; Karen Anderson; Audrey Perazzi; Virginie Gonzalez; Christopher Page; Juliette Chauvet; Wendy Ochoa; Niels Volkmann; Dorit Hanein; Isabelle Tardieux Summary Toxoplasma gondii , a human pathogen and a model apicomplexan parasite, actively...

...Diana Hippe; Arnim Weber; Liying Zhou; Donald C. Chang; Georg Häcker; Carsten G. K. Lüder In order to accomplish their life style, intracellular pathogens, including the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii , subvert the innate apoptotic response of infected host cells. However, the precise mechanisms...

... contact with the host cell. Second, rhoptries are discharged, leading to the formation of a tight interaction (moving junction) with the host cell, through which the parasite invades. The functional characterisation of several micronemal proteins in Toxoplasma gondii suggests the occurrence of a stepwise...

... in the final stages the mother disintegrates and is recycled in the emerging daughters. How the cytoskeleton and the various endomembrane systems interact in this dynamic process remains poorly understood at the molecular level. Through a random YFP fusion screen we have identified two Toxoplasma gondii...

...Amy DeRocher; Brian Gilbert; Jean E. Feagin; Marilyn Parsons The apicoplast is a relict plastid found in many apicomplexans, including the pathogens Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium falciparum . Nucleus-encoded apicoplast proteins enter the ER, and after cleavage of the signal sequence, are routed...

... trophozoites, and transgenic PfVps4 localized to the cytosol in P. falciparum , in the related parasite Toxoplasma gondii and in COS cells. When mutated to block ATP hydrolysis, transiently expressed PfVps4 localized instead to large vesicular structures in P. falciparum . The same construct, and another...

... cell invasion, and are thus proposed to play an essential role in establishing the parasitophorous vacuole. In Toxoplasma gondii, ROP2 is suspected to serve as the molecular link between host cell mitochondria and parasitophorous vacuole membrane. In this study we addressed the function of ROP2...

...Klaus Lingelbach; Keith A. Joiner ABSTRACT Plasmodium and Toxoplasma belong to a group of unicellular parasites which actively penetrate their respective mammalian host cells. During the process of invasion, they initiate the formation of a membrane, the so-called parasitophorous vacuolar membrane...

...L. David Sibley; Ingrid R. Niesman; Steve F. Parmley; Marie-France Cesbron-Delauw ABSTRACT Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that actively invades virtually all types of nucleated cells, surviving within a specialized vacuole called the para-sitophorous vacuole. Shortly after...