Epistasis studies reveal redundancy among calcium-dependent protein kinases in motility and invasion of malaria parasites
File(s)Nature Communications 2018 Fang.pdf (2.35 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In malaria parasites, evolution of parasitism has been linked to functional optimisation. Despite this optimisation, most members of a calcium-dependent protein kinase (CDPK) family show genetic redundancy during erythrocytic proliferation. To identify relationships between phospho-signalling pathways, we here screen 294 genetic interactions among protein kinases in Plasmodium berghei. This reveals a synthetic negative interaction between a hypomorphic allele of the protein kinase G (PKG) and CDPK4 to control erythrocyte invasion which is conserved in P. falciparum. CDPK4 becomes critical when PKG-dependent calcium signals are attenuated to phosphorylate proteins important for the stability of the inner membrane complex, which serves as an anchor for the acto-myosin motor required for motility and invasion. Finally, we show that multiple kinases functionally complement CDPK4 during erythrocytic proliferation and transmission to the mosquito. This study reveals how CDPKs are wired within a stage-transcending signalling network to control motility and host cell invasion in malaria parasites.
Date Issued
2018-10-12
Date Acceptance
2018-09-24
Citation
Nature Communications, 2018, 9
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Research (part of Springer Nature)
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
9
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000447123000024&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
100993/Z/13/Z
100993/Z/13/Z
Subjects
Science & Technology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Science & Technology - Other Topics
PLASMODIUM-FALCIPARUM
TOXOPLASMA-GONDII
MOSQUITO TRANSMISSION
FUNCTIONAL-ANALYSIS
SIGNALING PATHWAYS
CELL
GAMETOGENESIS
GLIDEOSOME
HOST
PHOSPHORYLATION
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 4248
Date Publish Online
2018-10-12