Discussion

The mitochondrial respiratory chain is of central importance for energy and metabolism in most eukaryotes. This is true also for the apicomplexan parasites that cause diseases like toxoplasmosis and malaria, where in fact the respiratory chain is a known target for clinically used and newly developing drugs. Yes, while the respiratory complexes are well studied in mammalians, the hosts of apicomplexans, their composition or structure/function relationship was largely unknown. Our team has been using biochemical, proteomics, genetics, and structural biology methods to discover, validate and understand the function of novel components and features of the respiratory complexes in apicomplexan. We primarily use Toxoplasma gondii as a model system, while novel insights are being validated in Plasmodium falciparum. My talk will describe the discovery of 20 new components of the Toxoplasma respiratory chain complexes, the validation of new components of complex II, III and V, and the structural insights of how some of the new components contribute to corresponding new functions, with focus on multimeric complex formations.