A Toxoplasma gondii pseudokinase inhibits host IRG resistance proteins.

ABSTRACT: The ability of mice to resist infection with the protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, depends in large part on the function of members of a complex family of atypical large GTPases, the interferon-gamma-inducible immunity-related GTPases (IRG proteins). Nevertheless, some strains of T. gondii are highly virulent for mice because, as recently shown, they secrete a polymorphic protein kinase, ROP18, from the rhoptries into the host cell cytosol at the moment of cell invasion. Depending on the allele, ROP18 can act as a virulence factor for T. gondii by phosphorylating and thereby inactivating mouse IRG proteins. In this article we show that IRG proteins interact not only with ROP18, but also strongly with the products of another polymorphic locus, ROP5, already implicated as a major virule

SUBMITTER: Fleckenstein MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3393671 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature