Malaria parasite plasmepsins: More than just plain old degradative pepsins

More than just vanilla.

More than just big ears

To the non-specialist, large ears in elephants used to mean African, small ears, Indian. But to taxonomists African elephants have long posed a more complex puzzle. During the nineteenth century, it was fashionable for wealthy trophy hunters to assign their own names to species they had shot destined for the museums of Europe. At least 18 elephant subspecies were claimed following this fashion....

EHPnet: More Than Just Unleaded

Plasmepsins IX and X are essential and druggable mediators of malaria parasite egress and invasion.

Proteases of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum have long been investigated as drug targets. The P. falciparum genome encodes 10 aspartic proteases called plasmepsins, which are involved in diverse cellular processes. Most have been studied extensively but the functions of plasmepsins IX and X (PMIX and PMX) were unknown. Here we show that PMIX is essential for erythrocyte invasion, act...

Periostin: more than just an adhesion molecule.

The form and function of the heart is determined by the dynamic interaction of both intra and extracellular signals. During normal growth of the neonatal heart myocytes undergo hypertrophy in response to variety of signals including changes in blood pressure1–3. The number of fibroblasts also increase and the collagenous connective tissue is formed.4,7,8 The coordination of these postnatal sign...