Dossin, Fernando M

Freitas-Junior, Lucio

Genovesio, Auguste

Hansen, Michael AE

Ku, Min-Je

Ma, Minjung

English

PubMed

Min-Je Ku

Fernando M Dossin

Michael AE Hansen

Minjung Ma

Auguste Genovesio

Lucio Freitas-Junior

Springer - Publisher Connector

A high-throughput cell-based assay to screen for drugs affecting PfEMP1 transport to RBC surface

POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access
A high-throughput cell-based assay to screen for
drugs affecting PfEMP1 transport to RBC surface
Min-Je Ku1*, Fernando M Dossin1, Michael AE Hansen2, Minjung Ma1, Auguste Genovesio2, Lucio Freitas-Junior1
From Institut Pasteur International Network Annual Scientific Meeting
Hong Kong. 22-23 November 2010
Upon infection of human red blood cells (RBCs), the
malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum starts to modify
its host cell by exporting parasite-encoded proteins to
the RBC cytosol and membranes. One of these proteins,
the P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1
(PfEMP1) is a major virulence factor. It is expressed on
the infected RBC surface and mediates cytoadherence to
several host endothelium receptors, enabling parasite
escape from spleen clearance but giving rise to severe
hemorrhagic complications of malaria.
Here we show the development of an assay to screen
for drugs affecting either PfEMP1 synthesis or transport
to RBC surface. In this assay, we incubate synchronized
young parasites with compounds in 384-well plate. After
20 h incubation, parasites are transferred to another
plate containing human placenta BeWo cells and are
allowed to bind to BeWo cells for 1 h. Unbound RBCs
are washed out and BeWo cells and remaining bound
RBC are fixed and stained respectively by the use of a
fluorescent anti-Glycophorin A antibody and the DNA
dye Syto60. Images are acquired in an automated, high-
throughput confocal microscope platform and analyzed
by an algorithm specialized for this assay. We expect
that our screening to result in the discovery of anti-
malarial drugs inhibiting PfEMP1 transport or assembly
at the RBC surface and thus disabling a major parasite
escape mechanism.
Author details
1Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3)-Malaria Drug
Discovery, Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Korea. 2Center for Core
Technologies-Image Mining, Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Korea.
Published: 10 January 2011
doi:10.1186/1753-6561-5-S1-P15
Cite this article as: Ku et al.: A high-throughput cell-based assay to
screen for drugs affecting PfEMP1 transport to RBC surface. BMC
Proceedings 2011 5(Suppl 1):P15.
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1Center for Neglected Diseases Drug Discovery (CND3)-Malaria Drug
Discovery, Institut Pasteur Korea, Seongnam-si, Korea
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Ku et al. BMC Proceedings 2011, 5(Suppl 1):P15
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1753-6561/5/S1/P15
© 2011 Ku et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


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A high-throughput cell-based assay to screen for drugs affecting PfEMP1 transport to RBC surface

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