Malaria parasites solve the problem of a low calcium environment

Abstract

The parasite responsible for malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, spends much of its life in the RBC under conditions of low cytosolic Ca2+. This poses an interesting problem for a parasite that depends on a Ca2+ signaling system to carry out its vital functions. This long standing puzzle has now been resolved by a clever series of experiments performed by Gazarini et al. (2003). Using advances in fluorescent Ca2+ imaging (Grynkiewics, G., M. Poenie, and R.Y. Tsien. 1985. J. Biol. Chem. 260:3440–3450; Hofer, A., and T. Machen. 1994. Am. J. Physiol. 267:G442–G451; Hofer, A.M., B. Landolfi, L. Debellis, T. Pozzan, and S. Curci. 1998. EMBO J. 17:1986–1995), these authors have elucidated the source of the Ca2+ gradient that allows the accumulation of intracellular Ca2+ within the parasite.