Fe-eling good - iron uptake and storage in T. gondii | New Voices in Infection Biology

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Talk abstract:

Acquisition and storage of metals has been a preoccupation of life for millennia. Iron is required for almost all life when incorporated into essential molecules and enzymes, however excess iron stimulates the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can be lethal. As an obligate intracellular parasites, Toxoplasma gondii requires iron which it likely acquires from the host, however how this is achieved remains unknown. As T. gondii moves between high and low iron environments, iron uptake and storage is likely to be highly regulated. VIT1 is an iron transporter conserved between plants and Apicomplexa. Shown to have a role in Plasmodium, we have investigated the role of VIT1 in T. gondii in more detail. We also are adapting unbiased genome-wide approaches to identify novel pathways of iron usage in these divergent parasites. The combination of these approaches will allow us to shed more light on metabolism and gene regulation conserved in the apicomplexan parasites.