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Eukaryotic Cell, April 2007, p. 584-591, Vol. 6, No. 4
1535-9778/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.00376-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Purification of Components of the Translation Elongation Factor Complex of Plasmodium falciparum by Tandem Affinity Purification{triangledown}

Sachiko Takebe, William Harold Witola, Bernd Schimanski, Arthur Günzl, and Choukri Ben Mamoun*

Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut 06030

Received 24 November 2006/ Accepted 7 February 2007

Plasmodium falciparum is the causative agent of severe human malaria, responsible for over 2 million deaths annually. Of the 5,300 polypeptides predicted to control the parasite life cycle in mosquitoes and humans, 60% are of unknown function. A major challenge of malaria postgenomic biology is to understand how the 5,300 predicted proteins coexist and interact to perform the essential tasks that define the complex life cycle of the parasite. One approach to assign function to these proteins is by identifying their physiological partners. Here we describe the use of tandem affinity purification (TAP) and mass spectrometry for identification of native protein interactions and purification of protein complexes in P. falciparum. Transgenic parasites were generated which express the translation elongation factor PfEF-1ß harboring a C-terminal PTP tag which consists of the protein C epitope, a tobacco etch virus protease cleavage site, and two protein A domains. Purification of PfEF-1ß-PTP from crude extracts followed by mass spectrometric analysis revealed, in addition to the tagged protein itself, the presence of the native PfEF-1ß, the G-protein PfEF-1{alpha}, and two new proteins that we named PfEF-1{gamma} and PfEF-1{delta} based on their homology to other eukaryotic {gamma} and {delta} translation elongation factor subunits. These data, which constitute the first application of TAP for purification of a protein complex under native conditions in P. falciparum, revealed that the translation elongation complex in this organism contains at least two subunits of PfEF-1ß. The success of this approach will set the stage for a systematic analysis of protein interactions in this important human pathogen.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT 06030-3301. Phone: (860) 679-3544. Fax: (860) 679-8345. E-mail: choukri{at}up.uchc.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 16 February 2007.

Eukaryotic Cell, April 2007, p. 584-591, Vol. 6, No. 4
1535-9778/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.00376-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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