MOLECULAR-CLONING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PLASMODIUM-FALCIPARUM CYTIDINE TRIPHOSPHATE SYNTHETASE GENE

Using degenerate oligonucleotides derived from conserved amino acid re gions of cytidine triphosphate synthetase, a fragment of the gene from the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, was isolated by polymer ase chain reaction (PCR). This fragment was used as a probe in the iso lation of genomic clones containing the entire pfCTP synthetase coding region (2580 bp). The gene encodes the largest CTP synthetase found i n any organism to date due to the presence of two additional sequences which are part of the continuous open reading frame and are not intro ns as their presence in the mRNA was confirmed by reverse transcriptas e-PCR. These features distinguish the parasite enzyme from that of the host making it an attractive target for structure based drug design. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.