Carbohydrate metabolism in the Toxoplasma gondii apicoplast: localization of three glycolytic isoenzymes, the single pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, and a plastid phosphate translocator.

ABSTRACT: Many apicomplexan parasites, such as Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium species, possess a nonphotosynthetic plastid, referred to as the apicoplast, which is essential for the parasites' viability and displays characteristics similar to those of nongreen plastids in plants. In this study, we localized several key enzymes of the carbohydrate metabolism of T. gondii to either the apicoplast or the cytosol by engineering parasites which express epitope-tagged fusion proteins. The cytosol contains a complete set of enzymes for glycolysis, which should enable the parasite to metabolize imported glucose into pyruvate. All the glycolytic enzymes, from phosphofructokinase up to pyruvate kinase, are present in the T. gondii genome, as duplicates and isoforms of triose phosphate isomerase, phosphoglyc

SUBMITTER: Fleige T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1951530 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature