Recurrent Fever Promotes Plasmodium falciparum Development in Human Erythrocytes

Pavithra, Soundara Raghavan and Banumathy, Gowrishankar and Joy, Omana and Singh, Varsha and Tatu, Utpal (2004) Recurrent Fever Promotes Plasmodium falciparum Development in Human Erythrocytes. In: Journal of Biological Chemistry, 279 (45). pp. 46692-46699.

PDF Recurrent_Fever-683.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (466kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

The human malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) is exposed to wide temperature fluctuations during its life cycle, ranging from 25 °C in the mosquito vector and 37 °C in humans to 41 °C during febrile episodes in the patient. The repeated occurrence of fever at regular intervals is a characteristic of human malaria. We have examined the influence of repeated exposure to elevated temperatures encountered during fever on the intraerythrocytic development of the parasite. Using flow cytometry, we show that repeated exposure to temperatures mimicking febrile episodes promotes parasite development in human erythrocytes. Heat shock-mediated cytoprotection and growth promotion is dependent on the heat shock protein 90 (PfHsp90) multi-chaperone complex. Inhibition of PfHsp90 function using geldanamycin attenuates temperature-dependent progression from the ring to the trophozoite stage. Geldanamycin inhibits parasite development by disrupting the Pf- Hsp90 complex consisting of PfHsp70, PfPP5, and tubulin,among other proteins. While explaining the contribution of febrile episodes to the pathogenesis of malaria, our results implicate temperature as an important environmental cue used by the parasite to coordinate its development in humans.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Biological Chemistry
Publisher:	American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Additional Information:	The copyright belongs to American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Biochemistry
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2006
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:29
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/7540

Actions (login required)

View Item