Medical Biology - Theses
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ItemAspartic proteases and their potential for transmission blocking strategies( 2019)Sexual stage development in Plasmodium spp. is essential for transmission through the mosquito and to the human host. It represents objects to study a broad range of biological processes, including stage conversion and parasite/host co-adaptation. After the bloodmeal, male and female gametes emerge from intracellular gametocytes and zygote formation follows fertilization. Ookinetes develop from the zygote and traverse through the midgut epithelial cell layer to the basal lamina side of outer wall and develop into oocysts, the only parasite developmental stage that grows extracellularly and this growth and development creates thousands of sporozoites. Once fully developed and egressed, these sporozoites are released into the mosquito hemocoel and they migrate to the salivary gland ready to infect next mammalian host and continue their life cycle. This sexual stage also represents a major bottleneck during the life cycle of Plasmodium as, in mosquito midgut, parasites have to persevere for up to 24 hours outside host cell, exposed themselves to various risk factors such as components of human immune system included within bloodmeal, natural midgut microbial flora in mosquito midgut, and mosquito innate immune system. This exposure can lead up to an approximate 300-fold decrease in parasite survivability during the transmission to mosquito. Due to this unique feature, sexual stage is prime target for transmission blocking intervention strategies aimed to inhibit spread of the disease by the mosquito. Protease enzymes are essential during many steps of malaria parasite development in the blood and transmission stages and an important group of these enzymes are the plasmepsins, of which there are 10 in Plasmodium acting at various points through the life cycle. So far, only 4 plasmepsins are identified to be involved in critical processes and required for transmission. Firstly, plasmepsin VI is highly expressed during sexual stages and was previously shown to be involved in sporozoite development in P. berghei. Secondly, plasmepsin VIII is expressed in mature sporozoite and responsible for sporozoite motility in P. berghei. Finally, PMIX and X are found to be essential in both blood and mosquito stages, making them stand out as promising drug targets. In this study, we attempted to determine the biological functions of plasmepsin VI, IX, and X during transmission of malaria parasites. We found that plasmepsin VI is required for transmission of P. falciparum and might plays an important role in sporozoite egress process instead of sporozoite development as observed in P. berghei. We also found that our dual inhibitor that target both plasmepsin IX and X is able to block the transmission of P. falciparum to mosquito while another antimalaria compound that target only plasmepsin X is enough to block transmission of P. berghei from mouse to mosquito suggesting that both plasmepsin IX and X are essential for transmission. Taken together, our data has identified 3 plasmepsins that play important roles in sexual stage of malaria parasites and more works are needed in order to determine the mechanism of action of these 3 proteases.
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ItemCharacterisation of the Plasmodium aspartyl proteases DNA-damage inducible protein 1 (DDI1) and Plasmepsin VII (PMVII)( 2019)Plasmodium falciparum resistance to artemisinin-(ART) based combination therapies (ACTs) and other antimalarials poses a major threat to malaria control and elimination. Current efforts are aimed towards identifying potent antimalarials which inhibit multiple stages of the parasite lifecycle or discovering novel drug targets which may help overcome ART-resistance. This work aimed to characterise two aspartyl proteases of P. falciparum which may hold promise as antimalarial targets. One strategy recently proposed to overcome ART-resistance is the synergistic use of a parasite-selective proteasome inhibitor to sensitise ART-resistant parasites to artemisinin. Therefore, development of an inhibitor targeting a parasite-specific protein involved in the P. falciparum ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) could yield a combination therapy to tackle ART-resistance. DNA-damage inducible protein 1 (DDI1) is a previously uncharacterised essential aspartyl protease in P. falciparum. Recent studies have shown that the catalytic domain of human DDI2 upregulates the UPS in mammalian cells. In other organisms, DDI1 plays a role in shuttling proteins to the proteasome for degradation via its ubiquitin-like domain. We hypothesise PfDDI1 is an active aspartyl protease and plays a role in the parasite’s UPS. To investigate the role of DDI1 in the UPS and parasite survival, we identified a DDI1 orthologue in P. falciparum and characterised this using several strategies. We utilised CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out, tag and inducibly knock down DDI1 across the asexual lifecycle of P. falciparum, and study the effect of this on parasites. Expression of recombinant DDI1 proteins provided insight into the protease activity and substrate repertoire of PfDDI1. Together these studies provide insight into the domain architecture, essentiality and function of PfDDI1 and clues into its potential as an antimalarial target. Development of an antimalarial to block parasite transmission between humans and mosquitos is also a viable strategy to reduce malaria burden. In this study, we also explore a potential transmission-blocking target, Plasmepsin VII (PMVII) and create tools to enable further study of this aspartyl protease in sexually reproductive gametocytes. These tools are vital to determine the function and substrate repertoire of PMVII and elucidate its potential as an antimalarial target.