Dissecting the Gene Expression, Localization, Membrane Topology, and Function of the Plasmodium falciparum STEVOR Protein Family

MBio
J Stephan WichersAnna Bachmann

Abstract

During its intraerythrocytic development, the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum exposes variant surface antigens (VSAs) on infected erythrocytes to establish and maintain an infection. One family of small VSAs is the polymorphic STEVOR proteins, which are marked for export to the host cell surface through their PEXEL signal peptide. Interestingly, some STEVORs have also been reported to localize to the parasite plasma membrane and apical organelles, pointing toward a putative function in host cell egress or invasion. Using deep RNA sequencing analysis, we characterized P. falciparumstevor gene expression across the intraerythrocytic development cycle, including free merozoites, in detail and used the resulting stevor expression profiles for hierarchical clustering. We found that most stevor genes show biphasic expression oscillation, with maximum expression during trophozoite stages and a second peak in late schizonts. We selected four STEVOR variants, confirmed the expected export of these proteins to the host cell membrane, and tracked them to a secondary location, either to the parasite plasma membrane or the secretory organelles of merozoites in late schizont stages. We investigated the function of a particular STEVOR ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 4, 2019·Frontiers in Microbiology·Gaëlle Neveu, Catherine Lavazec
Nov 17, 2020·Frontiers in Immunology·S Jake GonzalesEvelien M Bunnik

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Datasets Mentioned

BETA
E-MTAB-7731

Methods Mentioned

BETA
RNA-seq
PCR
transgenic
flow cytometry
glycosylation

Software Mentioned

Fiji
ALDEx2
Photoshop
MultiQC
R package edgeR
Image Lab
R package
featureCounts
FastQC
R package ALDEx2

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