Characterisation of the vacuolar compartment of malaria parasites within human red blood cells

恶性疟原虫的血液阶段是疟疾的病理基础。在这个生命周期阶段，寄生虫在红细胞内发育，周围环绕着一层额外的膜，称为寄生虫空泡膜(PVM)。这层膜代表了寄生虫和宿主细胞之间的界面，因此对寄生虫的细胞内生存起着核心作用。尽管这个隔室很重要，但人们对它的生物发生和蛋白质组成知之甚少。因此，我们将使用成像技术描述这种寄生虫在红血球中的发育过程，并使用一种新的方法来确定其蛋白质组。然后，蛋白质组将与红细胞中不同的生命周期阶段相关联，以揭示寄生虫的特定功能。我们期望这个项目不仅能确定这一重要隔间的特征，还能为已知的活动找到长期寻找的分子基础，例如PVM中的主要溶质孔。此外，我们希望发现PVM的新的、迄今未知的功能，这些功能可能对了解其他病原体的细胞内生存也具有普遍意义。

Plasmodium falciparum blood stages are responsible for the pathology of malaria. In this live cycle phase the parasite develops within red blood cells, surrounded by an extra membrane termed the parasitophorour vacuolar membrane (PVM). This membrane represents the interface between the parasite and the host cell and therefore plays a central role for the intracellular survival of the parasite. Despite of the importance of this compartment, little is known about its biogenesis and its protein composition. We will therefore characterise this compartment across the development of the parasite in red blood cells using imaging and will determine its proteome using a new approach. The proteom will then be correlated with the different life cycle phases in the red blood cell in order to reveal specific functions for the parasite. We expect that this project will not only define the characteristics of this important compartment but also to find the long sought molecular basis for known activities, such as for instance the major solute pore in the PVM. Moreover, we expect to discover new, so far unknown functions of the PVM that may also be of general relevance to understand intracellular survival of other pathogens.