Atypical mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase implicated in regulating transition from pre-S-Phase asexual intraerythrocytic development of Plasmodium falciparum.

ABSTRACT: Intraerythrocytic development of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum appears as a continuous flow through growth and proliferation. To develop a greater understanding of the critical regulatory events, we utilized piggyBac insertional mutagenesis to randomly disrupt genes. Screening a collection of piggyBac mutants for slow growth, we isolated the attenuated parasite C9, which carried a single insertion disrupting the open reading frame (ORF) of PF3D7_1305500. This gene encodes a protein structurally similar to a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphatase, except for two notable characteristics that alter the signature motif of the dual-specificity phosphatase domain, suggesting that it may be a low-activity phosphatase or pseudophosphatase. C9 parasites demonstrated

SUBMITTER: Balu B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3811562 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature