ArticleBMC biology2017
Multiple essential functions of Plasmodium falciparum actin-1 during malaria blood-stage development.
Article in BMC biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- A cytoskeleton-associated Plasmodium protein critical for organelle segregation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dual apical methyltransferases orchestrate motility initiation in apicomplexan parasites.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Highly divergent apicomplexan cytoskeletons provide additional models for actin biology.The FEBS journal · 2025Review
- An essential adaptor for apicoplast fission and inheritance in malaria parasites.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Plasmodium actin-like proteins are essential for DNA segregation during male gametogenesis and malaria transmission.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- An Essential Adaptor for Apicoplast Fission and Inheritance in Malaria Parasites.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- An atypical Arp2/3 complex is required for Plasmodium DNA segregation and malaria transmission.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Malaria: past, present, and future.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2025Review
- Article
- Fungal-derived methyldeoxaphomins targetProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The dynamin-related protein PfDyn2 is essential for both apicoplast and mitochondrial fission inmBio · 2025Article
- Luminal acetylation of microtubules is not essential forMicrobial cell (Graz, Austria) · 2025Article
- Detailing organelle division and segregation in Plasmodium falciparum.The Journal of cell biology · 2024Article
- Computational approach for decoding malaria drug targets from single-cell transcriptomics and finding potential drug molecule.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Elucidating the spatio-temporal dynamics of the Plasmodium falciparum basal complex.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Detailing organelle division and segregation inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Gene expression analyses reveal differences in children's response to malaria according to their age.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Gene expression analyses reveal differences in children's response to malaria according to their age.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Plasmodium falciparum formins are essential for invasion and sexual stage development.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Sulfonylpiperazine compounds prevent Plasmodium falciparum invasion of red blood cells through interference with actin-1/profilin dynamics.PLoS biology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe phylum Apicomplexa includes intracellular parasites causing immense global disease burden, the deadliest of them being the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which invades and replicates within erythrocytes. The cytoskeletal protein actin is well conserved within apicomplexans but divergent from mammalian actins, and was primarily reported to function during host cell invasion. However, novel invasion mechanisms have been described for several apicomplexans, and specific functions of the acto-myosin system are being reinvestigated. Of the two actin genes in P. falciparum, actin-1 (pfact1) is ubiquitously expressed in all life-cycle stages and is thought to be required for erythrocyte invasion, although its functions during parasite development are unknown, and definitive in vivo characterisation during invasion is lacking.
resultsHere we have used a conditional Cre-lox system to investigate the functions of PfACT1 during P. falciparum blood-stage development and host cell invasion. We demonstrate that PfACT1 is crucially required for segregation of the plastid-like organelle, the apicoplast, and for efficient daughter cell separation during the final stages of cytokinesis. Surprisingly, we observe that egress from the host cell is not an actin-dependent process. Finally, we show that parasites lacking PfACT1 are capable of microneme secretion, attachment and formation of a junction with the erythrocyte, but are incapable of host cell invasion.
conclusionsThis study provides important mechanistic insights into the definitive essential functions of PfACT1 in P. falciparum, which are not only of biological interest, but owing to functional divergence from mammalian actins, could also form the basis for the development of novel therapeutics against apicomplexans.
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