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Two essential Thioredoxins mediate apicoplast biogenesis, protein import, and gene expression in Toxoplasma gondii.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Bouchut, Anne 
Major, Jack 
Saveria, Tracy 

Abstract

Apicomplexan parasites are global killers, being the causative agents of diseases like toxoplasmosis and malaria. These parasites are known to be hypersensitive to redox imbalance, yet little is understood about the cellular roles of their various redox regulators. The apicoplast, an essential plastid organelle, is a verified apicomplexan drug target. Nuclear-encoded apicoplast proteins traffic through the ER and multiple apicoplast sub-compartments to their place of function. We propose that thioredoxins contribute to the control of protein trafficking and of protein function within these apicoplast compartments. We studied the role of two Toxoplasma gondii apicoplast thioredoxins (TgATrx), both essential for parasite survival. By describing the cellular phenotypes of the conditional depletion of either of these redox regulated enzymes we show that each of them contributes to a different apicoplast biogenesis pathway. We provide evidence for TgATrx1's involvement in ER to apicoplast trafficking and TgATrx2 in the control of apicoplast gene expression components. Substrate pull-down further recognizes gene expression factors that interact with TgATrx2. We use genetic complementation to demonstrate that the function of both TgATrxs is dependent on their disulphide exchange activity. Finally, TgATrx2 is divergent from human thioredoxins. We demonstrate its activity in vitro thus providing scope for drug screening. Our study represents the first functional characterization of thioredoxins in Toxoplasma, highlights the importance of redox regulation of apicoplast functions and provides new tools to study redox biology in these parasites.

Description

Keywords

Amino Acid Sequence, Apicoplasts, Biomarkers, Conserved Sequence, Evolution, Molecular, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Gene Knockdown Techniques, Luminescent Proteins, Microscopy, Fluorescence, Mutation, Organelle Biogenesis, Phylogeny, Protein Isoforms, Protein Multimerization, Protein Transport, Recombinant Fusion Proteins, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid, Thioredoxins, Toxoplasma

Journal Title

PLoS Pathog

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1553-7366
1553-7374

Volume Title

14

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (MR/M011690/1)