Journal article
Soft X-ray microscopy analysis of cell volume and hemoglobin content in erythrocytes infected with asexual and sexual stages of Plasmodium falciparum
E Hanssen, C Knoechel, M Dearnley, MWA Dixon, M Le Gros, C Larabell, L Tilley
Journal of Structural Biology | Published : 2012
Abstract
Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent agent of human malaria, undergoes both asexual cycling and sexual differentiation inside erythrocytes. As the intraerythrocytic parasite develops it increases in size and alters the permeability of the host cell plasma membrane. An intriguing question is: how is the integrity of the host erythrocyte maintained during the intraerythrocytic cycle? We have used water window cryo X-ray tomography to determine cell morphology and hemoglobin content at different stages of asexual and sexual differentiation. The cryo stabilization preserves native structure permitting accurate analyses of parasite and host cell volumes. Absorption of soft X-rays by protein a..
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Awarded by National Institutes of Health
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge support from the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Synchrotron, the Australian Research Council and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the US Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (DE-AC02-05CH11231), the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health (RR019664). Use of the Advanced Light Source was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science. We thank Sam Deed and Rosanne Boudreau for technical support and Dr Richard Allen, Australian National University, for useful discussions.