Contrasting Inducible Knockdown of the Auxiliary PTEX Component PTEX88 in P. falciparum and P. berghei Unmasks a Role in Parasite Virulence
Fig 6
Knockdown of PTEX88 in P. berghei impacts growth of P. berghei in vivo.
A: Parasitemia of Balb/c mice administered either ATc (dashed line) or vehicle control (solid line) after intraperitoneal administration of asynchronous PbANKA wildtype (WT) parasites (left panel) or PbPTEX88 iKD parasites (right panel). Each data point represents the mean ± SEM, n = 6 mice per group. ***P<0.001 as determined by unpaired t-test. B: Conditional depletion of PTEX88 leads to a lower fold-increase in parasitemia (left panel) and increase in circulating schizonts (right panel) in synchronous infections initiated by intravenous injection of merozoites. C: Conditional depletion of PTEX88 does not impact on merozoite formation within schizonts (n = 25).