Understanding Protein Translation in the Malaria Parasite

Grant number: 628704 | Funding period: 2010 - 2013

Completed

Abstract

Malaria is a major worldwide infectious disease. The disease kills around 2 million people every year, and current drugs are increasingly failing due to parasite drug resistance, creating an urgent demand for new drugs, that inhibit different targets. I will study a new class of parasite drug targets, the tRNA synthetase enzymes to find novel inhibitors. Compounds blocking these enzymes may lead to new drugs to combat malaria.

Related publications (8)

Scholarly works icon

Alternative splicing is required for stage differentiation in malaria parasites

LM Yeoh, CD Goodman, V Mollard, E McHugh, VV Lee, A Sturm, A Cozijnsen, GI McFadden, SA Ralph

2019-08-01

Background: In multicellular organisms, alternative splicing is central to tissue differentiation and identity. Unicellular protis..

Scholarly works icon

Delayed death in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is caused by disruption of prenylation-dependent intracellular trafficking

Kit Kennedy, Simon A Cobbold, Eric Hanssen, Jakob Birnbaum, Natalie J Spillman, Emma McHugh, Hannah Brown, Leann Tilley, Tobias Spielmann, Malcolm J McConville, Stuart A Ralph

2019-07-18

Apicomplexan parasites possess a plastid organelle called the apicoplast. Inhibitors that selectively target apicoplast housekeepi..

Scholarly works icon

Comparative transcriptomics of female and male gametocytes in Plasmodium berghei and the evolution of sex in alveolates

LM Yeoh, CD Goodman, V Mollard, GI McFadden, SA Ralph

2017-09-18

Background: The clinical symptoms of malaria are caused by the asexual replication of Plasmodium parasites in the blood of the ver..

Scholarly works icon

Selective inhibition of apicoplast tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase causes delayed death in Plasmodium falciparum

CFA Pasaje, V Cheung, K Kennedy, EE Lim, JB Baell, MDW Griffin, SA Ralph

2016-06-09

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum relies on efficient protein translation. An essential component of translation is the t..

Scholarly works icon

Targeting and function of proteins mediating translation initiation in organelles of Plasmodium falciparum

A Haider, SM Allen, KE Jackson, SA Ralph, S Habib

2015-05-01

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum has two translationally active organelles - the apicoplast and mitochondrion, which imp..

Scholarly works icon

A dual-targeted aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase in Plasmodium falciparum charges cytosolic and apicoplast tRNACys

JS Pham, R Sakaguchi, LM Yeoh, NS De Silva, GI Mcfadden, YM Hou, SA Ralph

2014-03-15

Plasmodium parasites possess two endosymbiotic organelles: a mitochondrion and a relict plastid called the apicoplast. To accommod..

Scholarly works icon

Recycling factors for ribosome disassembly in the apicoplast and mitochondrion of Plasmodium falciparum

A Gupta, SS Mir, KE Jackson, EE Lim, P Shah, A Sinha, MI Siddiqi, SA Ralph, S Habib

2013-06-01

The reduced genomes of the apicoplast and mitochondrion of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum are actively translated and ..

Scholarly works icon

Interaction of apicoplast-encoded elongation factor (EF) EF-Tu with nuclear-encoded EF-Ts mediates translation in the Plasmodium falciparum plastid

S Biswas, EE Lim, A Gupta, U Saqib, SS Mir, MI Siddiqi, SA Ralph, S Habib

2011-01-12

Protein translation in the plastid (apicoplast) of Plasmodium spp. is of immense interest as a target for potential anti-malarial ..

University of Melbourne Researchers