Mol Biochem Parasitol. 2009 Oct 29. [Epub ahead of print]
Isolation of Toxoplasma gondii development mutants identifies a potential proteophosphogylcan that enhances cyst wall formation
Craver MP, Rooney PJ, Knoll LJ.
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1550 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706.
Within warm-blooded animals, Toxoplasma gondii switches from an actively replicating form called a tachyzoite into a slow growing encysted form called a bradyzoite. To uncover the genes involved in bradyzoite development, we screened over 8000 T. gondii insertional mutants by immunofluorescence microscopy. We identified nine bradyzoite development mutants that were defective in both cyst wall formation and expression of a bradyzoite specific heat shock protein. One of these mutants, named 42F5, contained an insertion into the predicted gene TGME49_097520. The disrupted protein is serine/proline-rich with homology to proteophosphoglycans from Leishmania. T. gondii proteophosphoglycan (TgPPG1) expressed from the native promoter was undetectable in tachyzoites, but bradyzoites show punctate spots within the parasite and staining around the parasitophorous vacuole. Complementation of the 42F5 mutant with TgPPG1 expressed from either the alpha-tubulin or native promoter restores cyst wall formation. Overall, TgPPG1 is upregulated in bradyzoites and enhances cyst wall component expression and assembly.
PMID: 19879901 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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