An alternative model for heme biosynthesis in the malarial parasite

Padmanaban, Govindarajan and Nagaraj, Viswanathan Arun and Rangarajan, Pundi N (2007) An alternative model for heme biosynthesis in the malarial parasite. In: Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 32 (10). pp. 443-449.

PDF malarial.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (662kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

The malarial parasite imports an infected host’s red blood cell enzymes for heme biosynthesis during the intraerythrocytic stage. This is despite all the genes of the heme-biosynthetic pathway having been identified on the parasite genome. On the basis of predictions of parasite genome-coded enzyme localization, functionality of some of these enzymes and shuttling of intermediates between different parasite compartments, a hybrid model for parasite heme biosynthesis has been proposed. However, this model does not take into account the possible role of imported host enzymes in parasite heme biosynthesis. We propose an alternative model with an extrinsic heme-biosynthetic pathway in the parasite cytosol that uses imported host enzymes, and an intrinsic pathway confined to the organellar fractions that uses the parasite-genome-encoded enzymes.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Trends in Biochemical Sciences
Publisher:	Elsevier
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier.
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Biochemistry
Date Deposited:	10 Jul 2008
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:47
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/14906

Actions (login required)

View Item