Mitochondria and apicoplast of Plasmodium falciparum: behaviour on subcellular fractionation and the implication.
The mitochondrion and the apicoplast of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium spp. is microscopically observed in a close proximity to each other. In this study, we tested the suitability of two different separation techniques--Percoll density gradient centrifugation and fluorescence-activated organelle sorting--for improving the purity of mitochondria isolated from the crude organelle preparation of Plasmodium falciparum. To our surprise, the apicoplast was inseparable from the plasmodial mitochondrion by each method. This implies these two plasmodial organelles are bound each other. This is the first experimental evidence of a physical binding between the two organelles in Plasmodium.
Kobayashi
Tamaki
T
Department of Biomedical Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
Sato
Shigeharu
S
Takamiya
Shinzaburo
S
Komaki-Yasuda
Kanako
K
Yano
Kazuhiko
K
Hirata
Ayami
A
Onitsuka
Izumi
I
Hata
Masayuki
M
Mi-ichi
Fumika
F
Tanaka
Takeshi
T
Hase
Toshiharu
T
Miyajima
Atsushi
A
Kawazu
Shin-ichiro
S
Watanabe
Yoh-ichi
Y
Kita
Kiyoshi
K
D000818:Animals; D002458:Cell Fractionation; D002499:Centrifugation, Density Gradient; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D015388:Organelles / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000648:ultrastructure*