P. berghei Telomerase Subunit TERT is Essential for Parasite Survival
Figure 1
Pbtert gene structure (A) and PbTERT (B) and PbTR (C) expression.
(A) The tert gene of P. berghei and homology (percentage identity) of TERT proteins in different Plasmodium species. Sequencing of the gap between two adjacent tert gene models available in PlasmoDB revealed a sequence duplication of 57 nt (19aa). The complete Pbtert gene encodes a protein of 2312aa, which is comparable to the size of other Plasmodium tert genes. (B) Western analysis of PbTERT protein in mixed blood stages. Two bands with a size between 150 and 250 kDa were detected (expected size of the TERT protein is ∼240 kDa). (C) Northern analysis of Telomerase-associated RNA (TR) in different blood stages of P. berghei. RNA was hybridized with a probe recognizing TR (upper panel) (the expected size of TR is 2 kb) and as a loading control with a probe recognizing large subunit ribosomal RNA (expected size 0.8 kb). The “% loading” refers to the quantity of the loading control signal detected for each stage relative to the “late trophozoite” lane which is set as 100%.