Tuesday, January 22, 2008

MARveling at parasite invasion

Trends Parasitol. 2008 Jan 17 [Epub ahead of print]

MARveling at parasite invasion

Hager KM, Carruthers VB

Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556-0369, USA.

Micronemal proteins (MICs) are key mediators of cytoadherence and invasion for Toxoplasma gondii. Emerging evidence indicates that carbohydrate binding facilitates Toxoplasma entry into host cells. The recently solved Toxoplasma MIC1s (TgMIC1s) structure reveals the presence of novel specialized domains that can discriminate between glycan residues. Comparison with Plasmodium erythrocyte-binding antigen 175 reveals that terminal sialic acid residues might represent a shared but tailored invasion pathway among apicomplexan parasites.

PMID: 18203663 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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