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Toxoplasma Gondii Ap2ix-4 Regulates Gene Expression During Bradyzoite Development, Sherri Huang, Michael J. Holmes, Joshua B. Radke, Dong-Pyo Hong, Ting-Kai Liu, Michael W. White, William J. Sullivan Jr.

Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite of great importance to human and animal health. In the host, this obligate intracellular parasite persists as a tissue cyst that is imperceptible to the immune response and unaffected by current therapies. The tissue cysts facilitate transmission through predation and give rise to chronic cycles of toxoplasmosis in immunocompromised patients. Transcriptional changes accompany conversion of the rapidly replicating tachyzoites into the encysted bradyzoites, and yet the mechanisms underlying these alterations in gene expression are not well defined. Here we show that AP2IX-4 is a nuclear protein exclusively expressed in tachyzoites and bradyzoites undergoing division. …