Plasmodium Merozoite TRAP Family Protein Is Essential for Vacuole Membrane Disruption and Gamete Egress from Erythrocytes

Publication date: 9 November 2016
Source:Cell Host & Microbe, Volume 20, Issue 5
Author(s): Daniel Y. Bargieri, Sabine Thiberge, Chwen L. Tay, Alison F. Carey, Alice Rantz, Florian Hischen, Audrey Lorthiois, Ursula Straschil, Pallavi Singh, Shailja Singh, Tony Triglia, Takafumi Tsuboi, Alan Cowman, Chetan Chitnis, Pietro Alano, Jake Baum, Gabriele Pradel, Catherine Lavazec, Robert Ménard
Surface-associated TRAP (thrombospondin-related anonymous protein) family proteins are conserved across the phylum of apicomplexan parasites. TRAP proteins are thought to play an integral role in parasite motility and cell invasion by linking the extracellular environment with the parasite submembrane actomyosin motor. Blood stage forms of the malaria parasite Plasmodium express a TRAP family protein called merozoite-TRAP (MTRAP) that has been implicated in erythrocyte invasion. Using MTRAP-deficient mutants of the rodent-infecting P. berghei and human-infecting P. falciparum parasites, we show that MTRAP is dispensable for erythrocyte invasion. Instead, MTRAP is essential for gamete egress from erythrocytes, where it is necessary for the disruption of the gamete-containing parasitophorous vacuole membrane, and thus for parasite transmission to mosquitoes. This indicates that motor-binding TRAP family members function not just in parasite motility and cell invasion but also in membrane disruption and cell egress.

Graphical abstract

Teaser

MTRAP, a protein expressed in Plasmodium blood stages, was thought to function during invasion of erythrocytes by the asexual merozoite stage. Bargieri et al. report that MTRAP is dispensable for merozoite invasion but is essential for egress of the gamete sexual stage from erythrocytes and for parasite transmission to mosquitoes.


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