Four distinct pathways of hemoglobin uptake in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

ABSTRACT: During the bloodstage of malaria infection, the parasite internalizes and degrades massive amounts of hemoglobin from the host red blood cell. Using serial thin-section electron microscopy and three-dimensional reconstruction, we demonstrate four independent, but partially overlapping, hemoglobin-uptake processes distinguishable temporally, morphologically, and pharmacologically. Early ring-stage parasites undergo a profound morphological transformation in which they fold, like a cup, onto themselves and in so doing take a large first gulp of host cell cytoplasm. This event, which we term the "Big Gulp," appears to be independent of actin polymerization and marks the first step in biogenesis of the parasite's lysosomal compartment-the food vacuole. A second, previously identified uptake pr

SUBMITTER: Elliott DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2268159 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature