How is the intrinsic clock operated in malaria parasite cells? A whole new circadian clock mechanism!
It is clear now that the malaria parasite has an intrinsic clock. Two recent Science articles by the labs of Dr. Takahashi at UTSW and Dr. Haase at Duke elegantly demonstrated this very exciting discovery.
The massive gene expression programs that are regulated by this newly discovered circadian oscillator in Plasmodium is more like what happens in the cyanobacteria (Liu et al., 1995). This oscillator seems to generate the circadian rhythms of not only biological clock but also cell cycle maintain periodicity. It is already known that the Plasmodium doesn’t have homologs for known core circadian clock genes. How does the intrinsic clock is operated in malaria parasite cells? It seems to me there is an new circadian clock to explore in this organism. If we can understand the molecular mechanisms of the parasite clock then we could potentially target this clock for new antimalarial treatments.