Plasmodium berghei PIMMS2 promotes ookinete invasion of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito midgut
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Author(s)
Ukegbu, CV
Akinosoglou, KA
Christophides, GKC
Vlachou, D
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Mosquito midgut stages of the malaria parasite present an attractive biological system to study host-parasite interactions and develop interventions to block disease transmission. Mosquito infection ensues upon oocyst development that follows ookinete invasion and traversal of the mosquito midgut epithelium. Here, we report the characterization of PIMMS2 (Plasmodium Invasion of Mosquito Midgut Screen candidate 2), a Plasmodium berghei protein with structural similarities to subtilisin-like proteins. PIMMS2 orthologs are present in the genomes of all plasmodia and are mapped between the subtilisin-encoding genes SUB1 and SUB3. P. berghei PIMMS2 is specifically expressed in zygotes and ookinetes and is localized on the ookinete surface. Loss of PIMMS2 function through gene disruption by homologous recombination leads to normal development of motile ookinetes that exhibit severely impaired capacity to traverse the mosquito midgut and transform to oocysts. Genetic complementation of the disrupted locus with a mutated PIMMS2 allele reveals that amino acid residues corresponding to the putative subtilisin-like catalytic triad are important but not essential for the protein function. Our data demonstrate that PIMMS2 is a novel ookinete-specific protein that promotes parasite traversal of the mosquito midgut epithelium and establishment of mosquito infection.
Date Issued
2017-05-30
Date Acceptance
2017-05-11
Citation
Infection and Immunity, 2017, 85 (8)
ISSN
1098-5522
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Journal / Book Title
Infection and Immunity
Volume
85
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2017 Ukegbu et al. This is an
open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
Grant Number
223736
093587/Z/10/Z
107983/Z/15/Z
107983/Z/15/Z Wellcome Trust
Subjects
06 Biological Sciences
11 Medical And Health Sciences
07 Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences
Microbiology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e00139-17