Chapter category: Apoptosis
In Search of Atropos’ Scissors: Severing the Life-Thread of Plasmodium
Programmed Cell Death in Protozoa
Edited by: José Manuel Pérez MartínISBN: 978-0-387-76716-1
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Chapter authors:
Marcel Deponte
Protozoa of the genus Plasmodium are interesting models to study the mode of cell death of unicellular organisms. It is well known that the malaria-causing parasites can be killed in vitro and that they also die in vivo. The central question is how does cell death occur in Plasmodium? To date, the hypothesis that some stages of malaria parasites are able to undergo a form of programmed cell death is supported by available data, but there is no evidence showing that certain proteins are required for the observed processes. Here we present the current knowledge on Plasmodium metacaspases, because these putative proteases are the most promising candidates that might be essential for the execution of a programmed cell death in malaria parasites.
Marcel Deponte
Adolf Butenandt%u2011Institute for Physiological Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilians University
Additional chapters from this book:
Programmed Cell Death in Dinoflagellates
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Dinoflagellates are unicellular flagellated eukaryotes exploiting different nutritional modes although approximately half of them are photosynthetic. They are a monophyletic group, included in the lin...
Cell Death in Trichomonads
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Programmed cell death (PCD) is not confined to mammals and is extremely widespread, possibly universal, in multicellular animals. It is now evident that PCD also occurs in single-celled organisms and ...
Programmed cell death in African Trypanosomes
Katherine Figarella, Néstor L. Uzcátegui, Viola Denninger, Susan Welburn and Michael Duszenko
Since the discovery of programmed cell death in multicellular organisms and due to its definition as a mechanism to maintain the individual haemostasis of cellular and organ integrity, it was not plau...
In Search of Atropos’ Scissors: Severing the Life-Thread of Plasmodium
Marcel Deponte
Protozoa of the genus Plasmodium are interesting models to study the mode of cell death of unicellular organisms. It is well known that the malaria-causing parasites can be killed in vitro and that th...
Programmed Cell Death During Malaria Parasite Infection of the Vertebrate Host and Mosquito Vector
Luke Baton, Emma Warr, Seth Hoffman and George Dimopoulos
In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness of the role of programmed cell death (PCD) in the malaria parasite’s infection of its vertebrate host and mosquito vector. Although the eviden...
Programmed Cell Death and the Enteric Protozoan Parasite Blastocystis hominis :Perspectives and Prospects
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The propensity for unicellular eukaryotes to undergo programmed cell death (PCD) has been well documented in recent years. This fascinating yet somewhat counterintuitive phenomenon has been reported t...
Programmed Nuclear Death and Other Like-Apoptotic Phenomena in Ciliated Protozoa
Silvia Díaz, Ana Martín González, Andrea Gallego and Juan Carlos-Gutierrez
One of the more usual hallmarks of programmed cell death (PCD) in multicellular organisms is the nuclear chromatin condensation and the DNA fragmentation in multiple oligonucleosome length fragments. ...
DNA Metallo-Intercalators with Leishmanicidal Activity
Maribel Navarro, Gonzalo Visbal and Edgar Marchán
In the present chapter we focus our attention on the use of metal complexes for the treatment of leishmaniasis, especially those that have leishmanicidal activity which could be associated with their ...
Molecular Analysis of Programmed Cell Death by DNA Topoisomerase Inhibitors in Kinetoplastid Parasite Leishmania
Nilkantha Sen, Bijoylaxmi Banerjee and Hemanta K. Majumder
DNA topoisomerases of kinetoplastid parasites represent a family of DNA processing enzymes that essentially solve the topological problems not only in nuclear DNA but also in kinetoplastid DNA. Due to...
Programmed cell death & trypanosomatids: A brief review
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The phenomenon of apoptosis, one type of programmed cell death, is reviewed in three vector-borne trypanosomatids (Trypanosoma cruzi, Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania spp) responsible for diseases of...
Programmed Cell Death in Protozoa: An Evolutionary Point of View
The Example of Kinetoplastid Parasites
Miguel A. Fuerte, Paul A. Nguewa, Josefina Castilla, Carlos Alonso and José M. Pérez
Programmed cell death (PCD) is a molecular event, which play an essential role in the development of multicellular organisms. However, recent studies indicate that PCD is a mechanism also present in p...
Programmed Cell Death in Protists without Mitochondria:The Missing Link
Claude-Olivier Sarde and Alberto Roseto
Programmed cell death (PCD), a fundamental process that can be triggered in all cells, was supposed until recently solely centred on the mitochondrion. However, in amitochondriate organisms where only...
