Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Mar 8;134(5):jcs257345.
doi: 10.1242/jcs.257345.

Malaria parasite egress at a glance

Michele S Y Tan  1 , Michael J Blackman  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Malaria parasite egress at a glance

Michele S Y Tan et al. J Cell Sci. .

Abstract

All intracellular pathogens must escape (egress) from the confines of their host cell to disseminate and proliferate. The malaria parasite only replicates in an intracellular vacuole or in a cyst, and must undergo egress at four distinct phases during its complex life cycle, each time disrupting, in a highly regulated manner, the membranes or cyst wall that entrap the parasites. This Cell Science at a Glance article and accompanying poster summarises our current knowledge of the morphological features of egress across the Plasmodium life cycle, the molecular mechanisms that govern the process, and how researchers are working to exploit this knowledge to develop much-needed new approaches to malaria control.

Keywords: Egress; Malaria; Plasmodium; Protozoan.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

References

    1. Abkarian M, Massiera G, Berry L, Roques M, Braun-Breton C. A novel mechanism for egress of malarial parasites from red blood cells. Blood. 2011;117:4118–4124. doi: 10.1182/blood-2010-08-299883. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Absalon S, Blomqvist K, Rudlaff RM, DeLano TJ, Pollastri MP, Dvorin JD. Calcium-dependent protein kinase 5 is required for release ofegress-specific organelles in plasmodium falciparum . mBio. 2018;9:e00130-e00118. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00130-18. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adams JC, Tucker RP. The thrombospondin type 1 repeat (TSR) superfamily: diverse proteins with related roles in neuronal development. Dev Dyn. 2000;218:280–299. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0177(200006)218:2<280::AID-DVDY4>3.0.CU;2-0. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Agarwal S, Singh MK, Garg S, Chitnis CE, Singh S. Ca2+ -mediated exocytosis of subtilisin-like protease 1: a key step in egress of plasmodium falciparum merozoites. Cell Microbiol. 2013;15:910–921. doi: 10.1111/cmi.12086. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aly ASI, Matuschewski K. A malarial cysteine protease is necessary for plasmodium sporozoite egress from oocysts. J Exp Med. 2005;202:225–230. doi: 10.1084/jem.20050545. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Substances