Journal article
Revealing the Sequence and Resulting Cellular Morphology of Receptor-Ligand Interactions during Plasmodium falciparum Invasion of Erythrocytes
GE Weiss, PR Gilson, T Taechalertpaisarn, WH Tham, NWM de Jong, KL Harvey, FJI Fowkes, PN Barlow, JC Rayner, GJ Wright, AF Cowman, BS Crabb
Plos Pathogens | Published : 2015
Abstract
During blood stage Plasmodium falciparum infection, merozoites invade uninfected erythrocytes via a complex, multistep process involving a series of distinct receptor-ligand binding events. Understanding each element in this process increases the potential to block the parasite’s life cycle via drugs or vaccines. To investigate specific receptor-ligand interactions, they were systematically blocked using a combination of genetic deletion, enzymatic receptor cleavage and inhibition of binding via antibodies, peptides and small molecules, and the resulting temporal changes in invasion and morphological effects on erythrocytes were filmed using live cell imaging. Analysis of the videos have sho..
View full abstractRelated Projects (1)
Grants
Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
Funding: The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution to this work of the Victorian Operational Infrastructure Support Program and the NHMRC IRIISS scheme. This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Program Grant 406601 to AFC and BSC and Project Grant to BSC and PRG. GJW and JCR were supported by the Wellcome Trust grant number [098051]. TT was supported by the Melbourne International Research Scholarship (MIRS) and the Melbourne International Fee Remission Scholarship (MIFRS) from the University of Melbourne. KH was supported by the Australian Postgraduate Award from the University of Melbourne. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.