We’re excited to share our latest collaborative work, published in iScience, and lead by Sherwin Chan’s team, where we dive into how Plasmodium falciparum adapts to its environment by regulating tRNA expression and amino acid (AA) usage. This work highlights a remarkable strategy the parasite uses to cope with nutrient availability, particularly when amino acids are scarce.
Our research uncovered that P. falciparum’s tRNA expression profile does not align with the optimal needs for efficient translation. In fact, tRNAs that decode amino acids in short supply from the parasite's digestion of host hemoglobin are expressed at lower levels. Interestingly, genes involved in parasite proliferation depend heavily on these tRNAs. This suggests that when nutrient stress occurs, the parasite can slow down protein synthesis in these critical genes, effectively modulating its growth.
This discordant tRNA profile allows P. falciparum to fine-tune its protein synthesis in response to the nutrients available, using this as an adaptive strategy. It highlights metabolic adaptation as a significant driver in the evolution of the parasite's proteins, enabling it to exploit differences in amino acid composition among its genes.
We are particularly proud of the collaborative effort that brought this study together. Sherwin Chun-Leung Chan and Qian Li from the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC) at Karolinska Institutet have worked very hard to make this project progress. From our own lab, Ylva Veith, a PhD student, and Elena Christ, who was completing her bachelor thesis during this project, were both integral to this research.
Give it a read following this link!
