Malaria parasite packs genetic material for trip from mosquitoes to humans

said braka 3:37 AM
"Understanding the malaria parasite and how it interacts

with its host may provide insights that could help prevent the spread of this often-fatal disease," said Scott Lindner, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State and senior author of the study. "The malaria parasite has a complex life cycle that includes phases in the mosquito vector, the human liver, and in human blood. Moreover, the parasite has no idea when it's going to be transmitted from a mosquito to a human host and back, so it always needs to be ready to be transmitted. It prepares for this by making and packaging up the mRNAs that it will eventually need for making proteins inside its new host or a new mosquito."
During this process, called translational repression, special proteins bind to mRNAs and prevent them from being translated into . One protein involved binds to the mRNA's poly(A) tail—a repeated string of As or adenosine molecules added to the end of most mRNA strands. This helps to form a complex of proteins and RNA that is silenced but poised for action after the parasite is transmitted to the host. Most single-celled organisms have one type of this poly(A)-binding protein, while multi-cellular organisms have two. In this study, the researchers characterize two types of poly(A)-binding proteins in the single-celled Plasmodium parasite, both of which contribute to translational regulation.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-malaria-parasite-genetic-material-mosquitoes.html#jCp