Striated fiber assemblins and associated proteins in Plasmodium falciparum

ABSTRACT: Plasmodium parasites, the causative agents of malaria, undergo complex replication within vertebrate and insect hosts, presenting unique opportunities for therapeutic intervention. A key challenge during these replication events, i.e., schizogony in vertebrate red blood cells and sporogony in oocysts within mosquitos, is ensuring the faithful partitioning of nuclei and organelles into the numerous daughter cells that form at once from a single parent. While nuclear microtubule-organizing centers, or centriolar plaques (CPs), have been hypothesized to play a central role in this process, the molecular mediators linking the CPs and organelles remain incompletely defined. Here, we characterize two striated fiber assemblin (SFA) homologs, SFA1 and SFA2, in Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium berghei across two hosts. We show that these SFAs form a physical bridge between the CP and the nascent apical poles of daughter cells, facilitating high-fidelity progeny formation during schizogony and sporogony. Loss of SFA function disrupts merozoite and sporozoite formation, with profound consequences for transmission. These findings establish SFAs as essential organizers of parasite morphogenesis and highlight them as potential targets for antimalarial therapies. This submission includes the source microscopy image data for experiments performed in P. falciparum.

SUBMITTER: Jeffrey Dvorin 

PROVIDER: S-BIAD3060 | bioimages |

REPOSITORIES: bioimages