Highly dynamic host actin reorganization around developing Plasmodium inside hepatocytes

© 2012 Gomes-Santos et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Plasmodium sporozoites are transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes and infect hepatocytes, where a single sporozoite replicates into thousands of merozoites inside a parasitophorous vacuole. The nature of the Plasmodium-host cell interface, as well as the interactions occurring between these two organisms, remains largely unknown. Here we show that highly dynamic hepatocyte actin reorganization events occur around developing Plasmodium berghei parasites inside human hepatoma cells. Actin reorganization is most prominent between 10 to 16 hours post infection and depends on the actin severing and capping protein, gelsolin. Live cell imaging studies also suggest that the hepatocyte cytoskeleton may contribute to parasite elimination during Plasmodium development in the liver.
The work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) of the Portuguese Ministry of Science (PTDC/SAU-GMG/100313/2008), the Federal German Ministry of education and Science (Biofuture) C.S.S.G-S. was supported by an FCT fellowship (SFRH/BD/15888/2005). M.A.I. was funded by the EU FP 7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network ‘‘Intervention Strategies against Malaria (InterMalTraining)’’, contract no. 215281. L.F.M. is a Young Investigator from the Human Frontier Science Program and receives support from Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PTDC/SAU-MII/69280/2006 and PTDC/SAU-MII/78333/2006). F.F. thanks the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation for support. M.M.M. and F.F. are members of the EU FP7 Network of Excellence EVIMalaR