NOT Open Access | Autophagy-related protein PfATG18 participates in food vacuole dynamics and autophagy-like pathway in Plasmodium falciparum
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Mol Microbiol, 2019 Dec 21.
Plasmodium falciparum has a limited repertoire of autophagy‐related genes (ATGs), and the functions of various proteins of the autophagy‐like pathway are not fully established in this protozoan parasite. Studies suggest that some of the autophagy proteins are crucial for parasite growth. PfATG18, for example, is essential for parasite replication and has a noncanonical role in apicoplast biogenesis. In this study, we demonstrate the conserved functions of PfATG18 in food vacuole (FV) dynamics and autophagy. Intriguingly, the P. falciparum FV is found to undergo fission and fusion and PfATG18 gets enriched at the interfaces of the newly generated multilobed FV during the process.
