TRAP IS NECESSARY FOR GLIDING MOTILITY AND INFECTIVITY OF PLASMODIUM SPOROZOITES

Many protozoans of the phylum Apicomplexa are invasive parasites that exhibit a substrate-dependent gliding motility. Plasmodium (malaria) s porozoites, the stage of the parasite that invades the salivary glands of the mosquito vector and the liver of the vertebrate host, express a surface protein called thrombospondin-related anonymous protein (TRA P) that has homologs in other Apicomplexa. By gene targeting in a rode nt Plasmodium, we demonstrate that TRAP is critical for sporozoite inf ection of the mosquito salivary glands and the rat liver, and is essen tial for sporozoite gliding motility in vitro. This suggests that in P lasmodium sporozoites, and likely in other Apicomplexa, gliding locomo tion and cell invasion have a common molecular basis.