Role of Toxoplasma gondii Myosin A in Powering Parasite Gliding and Host Cell Invasion

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Tập 298 Số 5594 - Trang 837-840 - 2002
Markus Meissner1, Dirk Schlüter2, Dominique Soldati‐Favre1
1Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Imperial College Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK
2Institut für Med. Mikrobiologie und Hygiene, Universitätsklinikum Mannheim, Theodor-Kutzer-Ufer 1-3, 68167 Mannheim, Germany.

Tóm tắt

Obligate intracellular apicomplexan parasites rely on gliding motion powered by their actomyosin system to disperse throughout tissues and to penetrate host cells. Toxoplasma gondii myosin A has been implicated in this process, but direct proof has been lacking. We designed a genetic screen to generate a tetracycline-inducible transactivator system in T. gondii . The MyoA gene was disrupted in the presence of a second regulatable copy of MyoA . Conditional removal of this myosin caused severe impairment in host cell invasion and parasite spreading in cultured cells, and unambiguously established the pathogenic function of this motor in an animal model.

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Supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grant SO366/1-3. We are grateful to L. Y. Kwok K. Schönig and A. Herm-Götzfor their assistance and S. Brecht and C. Hettmann for their contributions to the early phase of the project. Special thanks to T. Soldati for his assistance with the microscopy and considerable input in the project H. Bujard for helpful discussions and R. Sindenfor critical reading of the manuscript.