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Malaria

Malaria secretome uncovered

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 3, pages 97–98 (2005)Cite this article

The life cycle of the malaria parasite involves developmental stages in both the mosquito vector and in humans. During the asexual blood stage, P. falciparum multiplies in human erythrocytes confined within a membrane-bound vacuole known as the parasitophorous vacuole. To create a suitable niche for its survival and multiplication, the parasite induces extensive remodelling of the erythrocyte membrane and cytoplasm. A variety of malaria proteins had already been identified as secreted proteins, and for a subset of these it was known that not only was an amino-terminal signal sequence involved but that an additional targeting sequence downstream of the signal sequence was also important. Now, two groups have independently identified the specific motif that is required for the parasite to secrete proteins into erythrocytes.

In their analysis, Marti et al. initially aligned the sequences of the N-termini of 10 known secreted Plasmodium proteins and were able to identify a novel conserved five-residue motif — RXLXE/Q — which they named Pexel, for Plasmodium export element. In the second analysis, Hiller et al. used a different bioinformatics approach — multiple expectation maximization for motif elicitation (MEME) analysis — and identified a motif that, at 11 residues, was longer than that identified by Marti et al. but which contains the Pexel motif at its core.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

  1. Marti, M. et al. Targeting malaria virulence and remodeling proteins to the host erythrocyte. Science 306, 1930–1933 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hiller, N. L. et al. A host-targeting signal in virulence proteins reveals a secretome in malaria infection. Science 306, 1934–1937 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Sheilagh Molloy
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Molloy, S. Malaria secretome uncovered. Nat Rev Microbiol 3, 97–98 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1094

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