About
Mats WAHLGREN – Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm – Suède)
Pregnancy-associated malaria commonly involves the binding of Plasmodium falciparum infected erythrocytes to placental chondroitin sulfate A through the PfEMP1-VAR2CSA protein. VAR2CSA is translationally repressed by an upstream open reading frame. I will discuss a novel Plasmodium falciparum translation enhancing factor that relieves uORF repression and thereby facilitates VAR2CSA translation. It also enhances translation in a heterologous translation system and thus represents the first non-canonical translation enhancing factor to be found in a protozoan. Our results implicate PTEF in regulating placental CSA binding of IE.
Contact : Artur SCHERF (artur.scherf@pasteur.fr – Poste : 86 16)