RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 PKAc is not required for the preerythrocytic stages of Plasmodium berghei JF Life Science Alliance JO Life Sci. Alliance FD Life Science Alliance LLC SP e201900352 DO 10.26508/lsa.201900352 VO 2 IS 3 A1 Hadi Hasan Choudhary A1 Roshni Gupta A1 Satish Mishra YR 2019 UL https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/2/3/e201900352.abstract AB Plasmodium sporozoites invade hepatocytes to initiate infection in the mammalian host. In the infected hepatocytes, sporozoites undergo rapid expansion and differentiation, resulting in the formation and release of thousands of invasive merozoites into the bloodstream. Both sporozoites and merozoites invade their host cells by activation of a signaling cascade followed by discharge of micronemal content. cAMP-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (PKAc)–mediated signaling plays an important role in merozoite invasion of erythrocytes, but its role during other stages of the parasite remains unknown. Becaused of the essentiality of PKAc in blood stages, we generated conditional mutants of PKAc by disrupting the gene in Plasmodium berghei sporozoites. The mutant salivary gland sporozoites were able to glide, invaded hepatocytes, and matured into hepatic merozoites which were released successfully from merosome, however failed to initiate blood stage infection when inoculated into mice. Our results demonstrate that malaria parasite complete preerythrocytic stages development without PKAc, raising the possibility that the PKAc independent signaling operates in preerythrocytic stages of P. berghei.