Discovery of Druggable Host Factors Critical to Plasmodium Liver-Stage Infection.

ABSTRACT: Plasmodium parasites undergo an obligatory and asymptomatic developmental stage within the liver before infecting red blood cells to cause malaria. The hijacked host pathways critical to parasite infection during this hepatic phase remain poorly understood. Here, we implemented a forward genetic screen to identify over 100 host factors within the human druggable genome that are critical to P. berghei infection in hepatoma cells. Notably, we found knockdown of genes involved in protein trafficking pathways to be detrimental to parasite infection. The disruption of protein trafficking modulators, including COPB2 and GGA1, decreases P. berghei parasite size, and an immunofluorescence study suggests that these proteins are recruited to the Plasmodium parasitophorous vacuole in infected hepatoc

SUBMITTER: Raphemot R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6754275 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature