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© The Rockefeller University Press, 0021-9525/2003/4/17 $5.00
The Journal of Cell Biology, Volume 161, Number 1, 17-19

Malaria parasites solve the problem of a low calcium environment

Department of Physiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229

Address correspondence to Patricia Camacho, Dept. of Physiology, Mail code 7756, UTHSCSA, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr., San Antonio, TX 78229-3900. Tel.: (210) 567-6558. Fax: (210) 567-4410. E-mail: camacho{at}uthscsa.edu

The parasite responsible for malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, spends much of its life in the RBC under conditions of low cytosolic Ca²⁺. This poses an interesting problem for a parasite that depends on a Ca²⁺ signaling system to carry out its vital functions. This long standing puzzle has now been resolved by a clever series of experiments performed by Gazarini et al. (2003). Using advances in fluorescent Ca²⁺ imaging (Grynkiewics, G., M. Poenie, and R.Y. Tsien. 1985. J. Biol. Chem. 260:3440–3450; Hofer, A., and T. Machen. 1994. Am. J. Physiol. 267:G442–G451; Hofer, A.M., B. Landolfi, L. Debellis, T. Pozzan, and S. Curci. 1998. EMBO J. 17:1986–1995), these authors have elucidated the source of the Ca²⁺ gradient that allows the accumulation of intracellular Ca²⁺ within the parasite.

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