Author(s): Baptista, Vitória Cunha ; Rey-Souto, Cora ; Silva, Miguel ; Franco, Anahir ; Freitas, Bruno ; Catarino, Susana Oliveira ; Vizoso-Vázquez, Angél ; Veiga, Maria Isabel
Date: 2024
Persistent ID: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/93682
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Malaria, an infectious disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, threats half of the world's population yearly due to the parasite's ability to develop resistance to antimalarial drugs. Therefore, innovative intervention strategies, which rely on a deeper understanding of the parasite's complex biology are urgently needed. Most antimalarial drugs target the symptomatic stage of infection of the parasite that is the one responsible for the symptoms of the disease. During this stage, the parasite ingests hemoglobin into an acidic digestive vacuole. Hemoglobin degradation releases toxic free heme that is converted into hemozoin. While hemozoin formation process is unclear, it is unique and vital for the parasite. Recently, a lipocalin protein was identified in Plasmodium falciparum and its conditional knockout demonstrated to cause malformations in hemozoin formation and consequent parasite death. Thus, given the somewhat role of lipocalin in hemozoin formation, we sought to study its interacting partners to identify the key players in this process. To accomplish this, we based our research on the yeast two-hybrid system with lipocalin as bait and performed mass spectrometry on gene-edited parasite lines overexpressing lipocalin. This research will deepen our understanding of hemozoin formation and potentially uncover new targets for developing new malaria therapies.
