The Modis Lab Research

AceES-2 Structure

The crystal structure of profilin from Toxoplasma gondii (center) reveals a surface motif (in yellow) that is specific to eukaryotic parasites such as T. gondii (left) and Plasmodium malaria parasites. Profilins promote actin polymerization by delivering monomeric ATP-actin to the ends of growing actin filaments. Toll-like receptor 11 (right) generates an innate immune response upon sensing T. gondii profilin. A series of structure-based profilin mutants show that the parasite-specific motif in T. gondii profilin is the key molecular pattern recognized by Toll-like receptor 11 (Kucera et al., 2010).

Kaury Kucera, A. Alicia Koblansky, Lauren Saunders, Kendra Frederick, Enrique De La Cruz, Sankar Ghosh & Yorgo Modis (2010). Structure-based analysis of Toxoplasma gondii profilin: a parasite-specific motif is required for recognition by Toll-like receptor 11. J. Mol. Biol. 403, 616-29.