Study Reveals Plasmodium's Replication Trick
Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 19:14
in Biology & Nature
The mechanism by which Plasmodium, the malaria parasite, intensively replicates itself in human blood to spread the disease has alluded researchers despite decades of rigorous research. But now biologists writing in the journal Genome Research say they have discovered how the deadly parasite regulates its infectious cycle. In the cells of eukaryotes, such as the unicellular Plasmodium and humans, DNA, which can be as long as two meters, is closely packed to fit into the cell's tiny nucleus. Huge complex proteins called nucleosomes facilitate this DNA compaction so that eventually the DNA is coiled in an ordered manner to form chromosomes. read more