Overexpression, purification and localization of apoptosis related protein from Plasmodium falciparum.

A growing body of evidence has ascertained that apoptosis is not only restricted to metazoans but also exists in unicellular parasites. In Plasmodium falciparum, the presence of a putative gene having sequence homology with apoptosis related protein (Gene ID PFI0450c) has raised enormous interest to unravel the function of this unique protein in cell death of malaria parasite. To characterize this protein, the gene has been amplified from the P. falciparum transcriptome by RT-PCR and the amplified gene has been successfully cloned, over-expressed and purified to homogeneity. The purified Pfduanyu37 exhibits minimum subunit MW of approximately 24kDa as evident from SDS-PAGE. CD analysis reveals that the alpha and beta content of the recombinant Pfduanyu37 are 61% and 15%, respectively. Semiquantitative RT-PCR analysis indicates the expression of Pfduanyu37 at both metabolically less active ring and highly active trophozoite stages of malaria parasite. Immunofluorescence microscopy further supports that Pfduanyu37 expresses stage specifically with the highest expression at trophozite stage and very little in the schizont stage. Pfduanyu37 is a cytosolic protein as evident from immunofluorescence microscopy. The role of this protein in P. falciparum cell death and stage progression is not yet known. The identification, purification and characterization would certainly be a step to initiate work on this protein to evaluate its role in P. falciparum growth, multiplication and stage progression.

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