title: Mitochondria and apicoplast of Plasmodium falciparum: behaviour on subcellular fractionation and the implication.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Tamaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Shigeharu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Shinzaburo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takamiya
authors.forename: Kanako
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Komaki-Yasuda
authors.forename: Kazuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yano
authors.forename: Ayami
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hirata
authors.forename: Izumi
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Onitsuka
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hata
authors.forename: Fumika
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mi-ichi
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Toshiharu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hase
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Miyajima
authors.forename: Shin-ichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kawazu
authors.forename: Yoh-ichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kita
mesh_terms: 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*