An Integrated Approach to Explore Composition and Dynamics of Cholesterol-rich Membrane Microdomains in Sexual Stages of Malaria Parasite

• DOI: 10.1074/mcp.m117.067041
• Publication Date: 2017-08-11T00:25:23Z
• Authors: Federica Fratini; Carla Raggi; Gabriella Sferra; Cecilia Birago; Anna Sansone; Felicia Grasso; Chiara Currà; Anna Olivieri; Tomasino Pace; Stefania Mochi; Leonardo Picci; Carla Ferreri; Antonella Di Biase; Elisabetta Pizzi; Marta Ponzi
• Keywords: Lipid raft; Raft; Plasmodium berghei; Sphingolipid; Membrane biology; Lipid microdomain; Membrane Lipids

Membrane microdomains that include lipid rafts, are involved in key physiological and pathological processes participate the entry of endocellular pathogens. These assemblies, enriched cholesterol sphingolipids, form highly dynamic, liquid-ordered phases can be separated from bulk membranes thanks to their resistance solubilization by nonionic detergents. To characterize complexity dynamics detergent-resistant sexual stages rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei, here we propose an integrated study raft components based on proteomics, analysis bioinformatics. This revealed unexpected heterogeneity unexplored pathways associated with these specialized assemblies. Protein-protein relationships protein-lipid co-occurrence were described through multi-component networks. The proposed approach widely applied virtually every cell type different contexts perturbations, under and/or conditions.