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Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?

Plasmodium, the unicellular parasite that causes malaria, evolved a highly unusual mode of reproduction. During its complex life cycle, invasive or transmissive stages alternate with proliferating stages, where a single parasite can produce tens of thousands of progeny. In the clinically relevant bl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Machado, Marta, Steinke, Salome, Ganter, Markus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33898332
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.660679
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author Machado, Marta
Steinke, Salome
Ganter, Markus
author_facet Machado, Marta
Steinke, Salome
Ganter, Markus
author_sort Machado, Marta
collection PubMed
description Plasmodium, the unicellular parasite that causes malaria, evolved a highly unusual mode of reproduction. During its complex life cycle, invasive or transmissive stages alternate with proliferating stages, where a single parasite can produce tens of thousands of progeny. In the clinically relevant blood stage of infection, the parasite replicates its genome up to thirty times and forms a multinucleated cell before daughter cells are assembled. Thus, within a single cell cycle, Plasmodium develops from a haploid to a polypoid cell, harboring multiple copies of its genome. Polyploidy creates several biological challenges, such as imbalances in genome output, and cells can respond to this by changing their size and/or alter the production of RNA species and protein to achieve expression homeostasis. However, the effects and possible adaptations of Plasmodium to the massively increasing DNA content are unknown. Here, we revisit and embed current Plasmodium literature in the context of polyploidy and propose potential mechanisms of the parasite to cope with the increasing gene dosage.
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spelling pubmed-80627232021-04-24 Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content? Machado, Marta Steinke, Salome Ganter, Markus Front Cell Infect Microbiol Cellular and Infection Microbiology Plasmodium, the unicellular parasite that causes malaria, evolved a highly unusual mode of reproduction. During its complex life cycle, invasive or transmissive stages alternate with proliferating stages, where a single parasite can produce tens of thousands of progeny. In the clinically relevant blood stage of infection, the parasite replicates its genome up to thirty times and forms a multinucleated cell before daughter cells are assembled. Thus, within a single cell cycle, Plasmodium develops from a haploid to a polypoid cell, harboring multiple copies of its genome. Polyploidy creates several biological challenges, such as imbalances in genome output, and cells can respond to this by changing their size and/or alter the production of RNA species and protein to achieve expression homeostasis. However, the effects and possible adaptations of Plasmodium to the massively increasing DNA content are unknown. Here, we revisit and embed current Plasmodium literature in the context of polyploidy and propose potential mechanisms of the parasite to cope with the increasing gene dosage. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8062723/ /pubmed/33898332 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.660679 Text en Copyright © 2021 Machado, Steinke and Ganter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Machado, Marta
Steinke, Salome
Ganter, Markus
Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title_full Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title_fullStr Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title_full_unstemmed Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title_short Plasmodium Reproduction, Cell Size, and Transcription: How to Cope With Increasing DNA Content?
title_sort plasmodium reproduction, cell size, and transcription: how to cope with increasing dna content?
topic Cellular and Infection Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33898332
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.660679
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