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Microtubule number and length determine cellular shape and function in Plasmodium.

Benjamin Spreng | Hannah Fleckenstein | Patrick Kübler | Claudia Di Biagio | Madlen Benz | Pintu Patra | Ulrich S Schwarz | Marek Cyrklaff | Friedrich Frischknecht
The EMBO journal | 2019

Microtubules are cytoskeletal filaments essential for many cellular processes, including establishment and maintenance of polarity, intracellular transport, division and migration. In most metazoan cells, the number and length of microtubules are highly variable, while they can be precisely defined in some protozoan organisms. However, in either case the significance of these two key parameters for cells is not known. Here, we quantitatively studied the impact of modulating microtubule number and length in Plasmodium, the protozoan parasite causing malaria. Using a gene deletion and replacement strategy targeting one out of two α-tubulin genes, we show that chromosome segregation proceeds in the oocysts even in the absence of microtubules. However, fewer and shorter microtubules severely impaired the formation, motility and infectivity of Plasmodium sporozoites, the forms transmitted by the mosquito, which usually contain 16 microtubules. We found that α-tubulin expression levels directly determined the number of microtubules, suggesting a high nucleation barrier as supported by a mathematical model. Infectious sporozoites were only formed in parasite lines featuring at least 10 microtubules, while parasites with 9 or fewer microtubules failed to transmit.

Pubmed ID: 31368598

Associated grants

  • Agency: EC|FP7|FP7 Ideas: European Research Council FP7 Ideas, International
    Id: StG 281719
  • Agency: Human Frontier Science Program HFSP, International
    Id: RGY0066
  • Agency: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, International
    Id: SFB 1129

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