Department of Parasitology and Medical Entomology, Faculty of Medical Laboratory Sciences, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan.
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2022 Apr 29;12:864819. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.864819. eCollection 2022.
The deadly malaria parasite, , contains a unique subcellular organelle termed the apicoplast, which is a clinically-proven antimalarial drug target. The apicoplast is a plastid with essential metabolic functions that evolved secondary endosymbiosis. As an ancient endosymbiont, the apicoplast retained its own genome and it must be inherited by daughter cells during cell division. During the asexual replication of inside human red blood cells, both the parasite, and the apicoplast inside it, undergo massive morphological changes, including DNA replication and division. The apicoplast is an integral part of the cell and thus its development is tightly synchronized with the cell cycle. At the same time, certain aspects of its dynamics are independent of nuclear division, representing a degree of autonomy in organelle biogenesis. Here, we review the different aspects of organelle dynamics during intraerythrocytic replication, summarize our current understanding of these processes, and describe the many open questions in this area of parasite basic cell biology.
疟原虫含有一个独特的亚细胞细胞器，称为类质体，这是一个经过临床验证的抗疟药物靶点。类质体是一种具有必要代谢功能的质体，它是通过二次内共生进化而来的。作为一种古老的内共生体，类质体保留了自己的基因组，在细胞分裂过程中必须由子细胞继承。在疟原虫在人体红细胞内的无性繁殖过程中，寄生虫和类质体本身都经历了巨大的形态变化，包括 DNA 复制和分裂。类质体是细胞的一个组成部分，因此它的发育与细胞周期紧密同步。同时，其动态的某些方面独立于核分裂，这代表了细胞器发生过程中的一定程度的自主性。在这里，我们回顾了疟原虫在红细胞内复制过程中细胞器动态的不同方面，总结了我们对这些过程的现有认识，并描述了寄生虫基础细胞生物学这一领域的许多悬而未决的问题。
