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Maurer's Cleft
Maurer's clefts are membranous structures seen in the red blood cell during infection with ''Plasmodium falciparum''. The function and contents of Maurer's clefts are not completely known; however, they appear to play a role in trafficking of Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) and other adhesins to the red blood cell surface. Description Maurer's clefts appear in the cytosol of red blood cells 2 to 4 hours after invasion by ''P. falciparum''. They originally appear as small membrane-bound vacuoles, likely originating from the parasitophorous vacuole membrane. However, as the parasite ages Maurer's clefts expand to form single flattened cisternae, 500-nanometers wide. In parasite strains lacking the protein REX1, Maurer's clefts instead appear as stacks of cisternae, similar to stacks of Golgi bodies. For the first half of the parasite life cycle, Maurer's clefts are highly mobile in the host cytoplasm. However, as parasites transition to the trophozoite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Blood Cell
Red blood cells (RBCs), also referred to as red cells, red blood corpuscles (in humans or other animals not having nucleus in red blood cells), haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek ''erythros'' for "red" and ''kytos'' for "hollow vessel", with ''-cyte'' translated as "cell" in modern usage), are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen (O2) to the body tissues—via blood flow through the circulatory system. RBCs take up oxygen in the lungs, or in fish the gills, and release it into tissues while squeezing through the body's capillaries. The cytoplasm of a red blood cell is rich in hemoglobin, an iron-containing biomolecule that can bind oxygen and is responsible for the red color of the cells and the blood. Each human red blood cell contains approximately 270 million hemoglobin molecules. The cell membrane is composed of proteins and lipids, and this structure provides properties essential for physiolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actin
Actin is a family of globular multi-functional proteins that form microfilaments in the cytoskeleton, and the thin filaments in muscle fibrils. It is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells, where it may be present at a concentration of over 100 μM; its mass is roughly 42 kDa, with a diameter of 4 to 7 nm. An actin protein is the monomeric subunit of two types of filaments in cells: microfilaments, one of the three major components of the cytoskeleton, and thin filaments, part of the contractile apparatus in muscle cells. It can be present as either a free monomer called G-actin (globular) or as part of a linear polymer microfilament called F-actin (filamentous), both of which are essential for such important cellular functions as the mobility and contraction of cells during cell division. Actin participates in many important cellular processes, including muscle contraction, cell motility, cell division and cytokinesis, vesicle and organelle movement, cell sign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Trager
William Trager (20 March 1910 – 22 January 2005) was an American parasitologist, professor at Rockefeller University, and member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Trager's research focused on developing microbiological culture systems for a variety of eukaryotic pathogens. He is best known for developing a culture system for the malaria parasite ''Plasmodium falciparum'' with James Jensen in the 1970s. Early life and education William Trager was born March 20, 1910, in Newark, New Jersey to Leon and Anna (Emilfork) Trager. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Rutgers University in 1930. He then moved to Harvard University where he was the first graduate student of L. R. Cleveland. In Cleveland's lab, Trager established a culture system for flagellate symbionts of the roach ''Cryptocercus punctulatus'', showing that the roach's ability to digest cellulose was actually due to the cellulases of the symbiotic flagellates. This work formed his PhD t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methylene Blue
Methylthioninium chloride, commonly called methylene blue, is a salt used as a dye and as a medication. Methylene blue is a thiazine dye. As a medication, it is mainly used to treat methemoglobinemia by converting the ferric iron in hemoglobin to ferrous iron. Specifically, it is used to treat methemoglobin levels that are greater than 30% or in which there are symptoms despite oxygen therapy. It has previously been used for treating cyanide poisoning and urinary tract infections, but this use is no longer recommended. Methylene blue is typically given by injection into a vein. Common side effects include headache, vomiting, confusion, shortness of breath, and high blood pressure. Other side effects include serotonin syndrome, red blood cell breakdown, and allergic reactions. Use often turns the urine, sweat, and stool blue to green in color. While use during pregnancy may harm the baby, not using it in methemoglobinemia is likely more dangerous. Methylene blue was first pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Maurer (biologist)
Georg Maurer (11 March 1907 – 4 August 1971) was a German poet, essayist, and translator. He wrote under the pseudonyms ''Juventus, murus,'' and ''Johann Weilau''. The son of a teacher, he was born in Szászrégen, Austria-Hungary (now in Romania), and grew up there before moving to Germany in 1926. He studied art history, Germanistics and philosophy in Leipzig and Berlin until 1932. He was a soldier during the Second World War. From 1955, he was a lecturer, then a professor at the Johannes R. Becher Institute of Literature in Leipzig, where he had great influence on the poets of the Saxon School. He died in Potsdam at the age of 64 and was buried in the Südfriedhof in Leipzig. Prizes and awards * Literaturpreis der Stadt Weimar 1948 * Johannes-R.-Becher-Preis 1961 *Kunstpreis der Stadt Leipzig 1964 *Nationalpreis der DDR 1965 * F.-C.-Weiskopf-Preis 1972 Werke *''Ewige Stimmen'', poems, Haessel Verlag Leipzig 1936 *''Gesänge der Zeit'', hymns and sonnets, Rupert-Verlag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PHIST
The ''Plasmodium'' helical interspersed subtelomeric proteins (PHIST) or ring-infected erythrocyte surface antigens (RESA) are a family of protein domains found in the malaria-causing ''Plasmodium'' species. It was initially identified as a short four-helical conserved region in the single-domain export proteins, but the identification of this part associated with a DnaJ domain in ''P. falciparum'' RESA (named after the ring stage of the parasite) has led to its reclassification as the RESA N-terminal domain. This domain has been classified into three subfamilies, PHISTa, PHISTb, and PHISTc. The PHIST proteins are exported to the cytoplasm of the infected erythrocyte. The human malaria parasites ''P. falciparum'' and '' P. vivax'' have shown a lineage-specific expansion of proteins with this domain. Of the two PHIST genes in the mouse parasite '' P. berghei'', only one is required for infection. The PHIST domain folds into three long helices (forming a bundle) and two smaller N-te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Reading Frame
In molecular biology, open reading frames (ORFs) are defined as spans of DNA sequence between the start and stop codons. Usually, this is considered within a studied region of a prokaryotic DNA sequence, where only one of the six possible reading frames will be "open" (the "reading", however, refers to the RNA produced by transcription of the DNA and its subsequent interaction with the ribosome in translation). Such an ORF may contain a start codon (usually AUG in terms of RNA) and by definition cannot extend beyond a stop codon (usually UAA, UAG or UGA in RNA). That start codon (not necessarily the first) indicates where translation may start. The transcription termination site is located after the ORF, beyond the translation stop codon. If transcription were to cease before the stop codon, an incomplete protein would be made during translation. In eukaryotic genes with multiple exons, introns are removed and exons are then joined together after transcription to yield the final ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
