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closeMore evidence required to confirm this conclusion
Posted by singhap on 25 Jun 2011 at 07:11 GMT
Presentation of CS by infected hepatocytes and DCs does not require functional Pexel/VTS motifs
http://plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1001318#article1.body1.sec2.sec6.p1
This is in contradiction to our findings in Cell (2), and we feel that this issue should be resolved. In our experience, once exported, CS spreads all over the cytoplasm of hepatocytes in a Pexel-dependent manner. However, in the Figure of your paper that deals with this issue, the CS from the Pexel (-) parasite is still very close to the parasite. We argue that CS is still within the limits of parasitophorous membrane (PVM) that surrounds the parasite and not in the hepatocyte cytoplasm. Thus before you reach the conclusion that the two typical Pexels of CS are not functional, you have to prove (a) that you mutated the Pexel motif correctly using the well known parasitized red-blood cell assay (3); and (b) that CS is beyond the PVM limits .
I stress that this is an important issue that challenges the generally accepted function of Pexel in malaria proteins.
References:
2. Plasmodium Circumsporozoite Protein Promotes the Development of the Liver Stages of the Parasite. Singh, A.P. et al. CELL 2007. 131(3): 492-504.
3. Targeting malaria virulence and remodeling proteins to the host erythrocyte. Marti, M., et al., Science, 2004. 306: p. 1930-3.