The transferrin receptor of Trypanosoma brucei (TbTfR) is a heterodimer glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored ESAG6 subunit and an ESAG7 subunit. To investigate whether the GPI-anchor essential for function TbTfR, with transmembrane domain instead (ESAG6tmd) was inducibly expressed in bloodstream form trypanosomes. It shown that ESAG6tmd able to dimerise TbTfR can bind transferrin. Fracti...

DOORS syndrome is characterized by deafness, onychodystrophy, osteodystrophy, intellectual disability, and seizures. In this study, we report two unrelated individuals with without deafness. Exome sequencing revealed a homozygous missense variant in PIGF (NM_173074.3:c.515C>G, p.Pro172Arg) both. We demonstrate impaired glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) biosynthesis through flow cytometry analy...

The role of plasma membrane (PM) area as a critical factor during cell motility is poorly understood, mainly due to an inability to precisely follow PM area dynamics. To address this fundamental question, we developed static and dynamic assays to follow exocytosis, endocytosis, and PM area changes during fibroblast spreading. Because the PM area cannot increase by stretch, spreading proceeds by...

Both, culture-derived and metacyclic trypomastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi shed a glycoprotein, the shed acute phase antigen, that is responsible for the trans-sialidase activity. In the present work the structure of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol membrane anchor of the trans-sialidase isolated from metacyclic forms was determined. Parasites were metabolically labelled with [9, 10(n)3H]-palmit...

Protein export from the ER is mediated by COPII vesicles. Glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked proteins seem to be segregated from other cargo proteins during ER export, suggesting that ER membranes produce more than one type of vesicle.

African trypanosomes (Trypanosoma brucei) have a digenetic lifecycle that alternates between the mammalian bloodstream and the tsetse fly vector. In the bloodstream, replicating long slender parasites transform into non-dividing short stumpy forms. Upon transmission into the fly midgut, short stumpy cells differentiate into actively dividing procyclics. A hallmark of this process is the replace...