Knockdown of the Plasmodium falciparum SURFIN4.1 antigen leads to an increase of its cognate transcript.

The genome of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum contains the surf gene family which encodes large transmembrane proteins of unknown function. While some surf alleles appear to be expressed in sexual stages, others occur in asexual blood stage forms and may be associated to virulence-associated processes and undergo transcriptional switching. We accessed the transcription of surf genes along multiple invasions by real time PCR. Based on the observation of persistent expression of gene surf4.1, we created a parasite line which expresses a conditionally destabilized SURFIN4.1 protein. Upon destabilization of the protein, no interference of parasite growth or morphological changes were detected. However, we observed a strong increase in the transcript quantities of surf4.1 and sometimes of other surf genes in knocked-down parasites. While this effect was reversible when SURFIN4.1 was stabilized again after a few days of destabilization, longer destabilization periods resulted in a transcriptional switch away from surf4.1. When we tested if a longer transcript half-life was responsible for increased transcript detection in SURFIN4.1 knocked-down parasites, no alteration was found compared to control parasite lines. This suggests a specific feedback of the expressed SURFIN protein to its transcript pointing to a novel type of regulation, inedited in Plasmodium.

Expression and function of pvcrt-o, a Plasmodium vivax ortholog of pfcrt, in Plasmodium falciparum and Dictyostelium discoideum.

Chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium vivax threatens the use of this drug as first-line treatment for millions of people infected each year worldwide. Unlike Plasmodium falciparum, in which chloroquine resistance is associated with mutations in the pfcrt gene encoding a digestive vacuole transmembrane protein, no point mutations have been associated with chloroquine resistance in the P. vivax ortholog gene, pvcrt-o (also called pvcg10). However, the question remains whether pvcrt-o can affect chloroquine response independent of mutations. Since P. vivax cannot be cultured in vitro, we used two heterologous expression systems to address this question. Results from the first system, in which chloroquine sensitive P. falciparum parasites were transformed with pvcrt-o, showed a 2.2-fold increase in chloroquine tolerance with pvcrt-o expression under a strong promoter; this effect was reversed by verapamil. In the second system, wild type pvcrt-o or a mutated form of the gene was expressed in Dictyostelium discoideum. Forms of PvCRT-o engineered to express either lysine or threonine at position 76 produced a verapamil-reversible reduction of chloroquine accumulation in this system to approximately 60% of that in control cells. Our data support an effect of PvCRT-o on chloroquine transport and/or accumulation by P. vivax, independent of the K76T amino acid substitution.

Systematic analysis of FKBP inducible degradation domain tagging strategies for the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Targeted regulation of protein levels is an important tool to gain insights into the role of proteins essential to cell function and development. In recent years, a method based on mutated forms of the human FKBP12 has been established and used to great effect in various cell types to explore protein function. The mutated FKBP protein, referred to as destabilization domain (DD) tag when fused with a native protein at the N- or C-terminus targets the protein for proteosomal degradation. Regulated expression is achieved via addition of a compound, Shld-1, that stabilizes the protein and prevents degradation. A limited number of studies have used this system to provide powerful insight into protein function in the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. In order to better understand the DD inducible system in P. falciparum, we studied the effect of Shld-1 on parasite growth, demonstrating that although development is not impaired, it is delayed, requiring the appropriate controls for phenotype interpretation. We explored the quantified regulation of reporter Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and luciferase constructs fused to three DD variants in parasite cells either via transient or stable transfection. The regulation obtained with the original FKBP derived DD domain was compared to two triple mutants DD24 and DD29, which had been described to provide better regulation for C-terminal tagging in other cell types. When cloned to the C-terminal of reporter proteins, DD24 provided the strongest regulation allowing reporter activity to be reduced to lower levels than DD and to restore the activity of stabilised proteins to higher levels than DD29. Importantly, DD24 has not previously been applied to regulate proteins in P. falciparum. The possibility of regulating an exported protein was addressed by targeting the Ring-Infected Erythrocyte Surface Antigen (RESA) at its C-terminus. The tagged protein demonstrated an important modulation of its expression.