Abstract 2963 Discovery of an Atypical Malaria Parasite Inositol Phosphatase

Host-pathogen interactions of the apicomplexan parasite Plasmodium falciparum, the primary cause of severe and fatal malaria, are critical to understand. For example, sickle-trait hemoglobin confers near-complete protection from severe malaria, but parasites have adapted to overcome this protection and cause disease. A genome-wide association study identified polymorphisms in a predicted protein tyrosine phosphatase that were linked to malaria severity in children with sickle-trait hemoglobin. The protein contains an export element motif but lacks structural features typically associated with protein phosphatases.