Journal Article

A divergent cyclin/cyclin-dependent kinase complex controls the atypical replication of a malaria parasite during gametogony and transmission

Abstract

Cell cycle transitions are generally triggered by variation in the activity of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) bound to cyclins. Malaria-causing parasites have a life cycle with unique cell-division cycles, and a repertoire of divergent CDKs and cyclins of poorly understood function and interdependency. We show that Plasmodium berghei CDK-related kinase 5 (CRK5), is a critical regulator of atypical mitosis in the gametogony and is required for mosquito transmission. It phosphorylates canonical CDK motifs of components in the pre-replicative complex and is essential for DNA replication. During a replicative cycle, CRK5 stably interacts with a single Plasmodium-specific cyclin (SOC2), although we obtained no evidence of SOC2 cycling by transcription, translation or degradation. Our results provide evidence that during Plasmodium male gametogony, this divergent cyclin/CDK pair fills the functional space of other eukaryotic cell-cycle kinases controlling DNA replication.

Attached files

Authors

Balestra, Aurélia C.
Zeeshan, Mohammad
Rea, Edward
Pasquarello, Carla
Brusini, Lorenzo
Mourier, Tobias
Subudhi, Amit Kumar
Klages, Natacha
Arboit, Patrizia
Pandey, Rajan
Brady, Declan
Vaughan, Sue
Holder, Anthony A.
Pain, Arnab
Ferguson, David J.P.
Hainard, Alexandre
Tewari, Rita
Brochet, Mathieu

Oxford Brookes departments

Department of Biological and Medical Sciences

Dates

Year of publication: 2020
Date of RADAR deposit: 2022-05-17

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

---

Related resources

This RADAR resource is Identical to A divergent cyclin/cyclin-dependent kinase complex controls the atypical replication of a malaria parasite during gametogony and transmission