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DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi

Malaria parasites are unusual, early-diverging protozoans with non-canonical cell cycles. They do not undergo binary fission, but divide primarily by schizogony. This involves the asynchronous production of multiple nuclei within the same cytoplasm, culminating in a single mass cytokinesis event. Th...

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Autores principales: McDonald, Jennifer, Merrick, Catherine J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9255763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35731838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010595
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author McDonald, Jennifer
Merrick, Catherine J.
author_facet McDonald, Jennifer
Merrick, Catherine J.
author_sort McDonald, Jennifer
collection PubMed
description Malaria parasites are unusual, early-diverging protozoans with non-canonical cell cycles. They do not undergo binary fission, but divide primarily by schizogony. This involves the asynchronous production of multiple nuclei within the same cytoplasm, culminating in a single mass cytokinesis event. The rate and efficiency of parasite reproduction is fundamentally important to malarial disease, which tends to be severe in hosts with high parasite loads. Here, we have studied for the first time the dynamics of schizogony in two human malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi. These differ in their cell-cycle length, the number of progeny produced and the genome composition, among other factors. Comparing them could therefore yield new information about the parameters and limitations of schizogony. We report that the dynamics of schizogony differ significantly between these two species, most strikingly in the gap phases between successive nuclear multiplications, which are longer in P. falciparum and shorter, but more heterogenous, in P. knowlesi. In both species, gaps become longer as schizogony progresses, whereas each period of active DNA replication grows shorter. In both species there is also extreme variability between individual cells, with some schizonts producing many more nuclei than others, and some individual nuclei arresting their DNA replication for many hours while adjacent nuclei continue to replicate. The efficiency of schizogony is probably influenced by a complex set of factors in both the parasite and its host cell.
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spelling pubmed-92557632022-07-06 DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi McDonald, Jennifer Merrick, Catherine J. PLoS Pathog Research Article Malaria parasites are unusual, early-diverging protozoans with non-canonical cell cycles. They do not undergo binary fission, but divide primarily by schizogony. This involves the asynchronous production of multiple nuclei within the same cytoplasm, culminating in a single mass cytokinesis event. The rate and efficiency of parasite reproduction is fundamentally important to malarial disease, which tends to be severe in hosts with high parasite loads. Here, we have studied for the first time the dynamics of schizogony in two human malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi. These differ in their cell-cycle length, the number of progeny produced and the genome composition, among other factors. Comparing them could therefore yield new information about the parameters and limitations of schizogony. We report that the dynamics of schizogony differ significantly between these two species, most strikingly in the gap phases between successive nuclear multiplications, which are longer in P. falciparum and shorter, but more heterogenous, in P. knowlesi. In both species, gaps become longer as schizogony progresses, whereas each period of active DNA replication grows shorter. In both species there is also extreme variability between individual cells, with some schizonts producing many more nuclei than others, and some individual nuclei arresting their DNA replication for many hours while adjacent nuclei continue to replicate. The efficiency of schizogony is probably influenced by a complex set of factors in both the parasite and its host cell. Public Library of Science 2022-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9255763/ /pubmed/35731838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010595 Text en © 2022 McDonald, Merrick https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
McDonald, Jennifer
Merrick, Catherine J.
DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title_full DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title_fullStr DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title_full_unstemmed DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title_short DNA replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium knowlesi
title_sort dna replication dynamics during erythrocytic schizogony in the malaria parasites plasmodium falciparum and plasmodium knowlesi
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9255763/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35731838
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010595
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