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Nucleic Acids Research 2005 33(3):1111-1122; doi:10.1093/nar/gki260
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Published online 18 February 2005

© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions{at}oupjournals.org

Article

The unusually large Plasmodium telomerase reverse-transcriptase localizes in a discrete compartment associated with the nucleolus

Luisa M. Figueiredo1, Eduardo P. C. Rocha2,3, Liliana Mancio-Silva1, Christine Prevost4, Danièle Hernandez-Verdun5 and Artur Scherf1,*

1 Institut Pasteur, Biology of Host Parasite Interaction Unit–CNRS URA2581 25 rue du Dr Roux, 75724 Paris, France 2 Unité GGB URA CNRS 2171 Institut Pasteur 28 rue Dr Roux, 75724 Paris, France 3 Atelier de BioInformatique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie 12 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France 4 Plateforme de Microscopie Electronique, Institut Pasteur 25 rue du Dr Roux, 75724 Paris, France 5 Institut Jacques Monod UMR 7592, 2 place Jussieu, 75251 Paris, France

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +33 1 4568 8616; Fax: +33 1 4568 8348; Email: ascherf{at}pasteur.fr

Received December 31, 2004. Accepted February 1, 2005.

Telomerase replicates chromosome ends, a function necessary for maintaining genome integrity. We have identified the gene that encodes the catalytic reverse transcriptase (RT) component of this enzyme in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (PfTERT) as well as the orthologous genes from two rodent and one simian malaria species. PfTERT is predicted to encode a basic protein that contains the major sequence motifs previously identified in known telomerase RTs (TERTs). At ~2500 amino acids, PfTERT is three times larger than other characterized TERTs. We observed remarkable sequence diversity between TERT proteins of different Plasmodial species, with conserved domains alternating with hypervariable regions. Immunofluorescence analysis revealed that PfTERT is expressed in asexual blood stage parasites that have begun DNA synthesis. Surprisingly, rather than at telomere clusters, PfTERT typically localizes into a discrete nuclear compartment. We further demonstrate that this compartment is associated with the nucleolus, hereby defined for the first time in P.falciparum.

Present address: Luisa M. Figueiredo, The Rockefeller University, Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA

DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank accession nos+

+ AABL01000132 and AZ525829


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