TY - JOUR T1 - Systems Analysis of Chaperone Networks in the Malarial Parasite Plasmodium falciparum A1 - Pavithra, Soundara Raghavan A1 - Kumar, Ranjit A1 - Tatu, Utpal Y1 - 2007/09/14 N2 - Author SummaryAmong the infectious diseases affecting humans, the malarial parasite is responsible for a very high number of deaths. About 2 million people die of malaria every year, of which more than a million are children in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is caused by a protozoan parasite belonging to the genus Plasmodium, and Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for the most severe form of malaria. Due to the increasing incidence of resistance to existing drugs, there is a growing need to discover new and more effective drugs against malaria. We have computationally predicted processes governing parasite growth in humans. Recent reports from several labs point to a critical role played by a group of proteins termed molecular chaperones in parasite growth within red cells. We have therefore chosen to provide a balance sheet of all the activities supported by this group of proteins in the parasite. Our systems-level approach provides information on 95 different chaperones in the parasite and also provides insights into their business partners and cellular processes that they might regulate. In addition to predicting a basis for the anti-malarial potential of known drugs such as geldanamycin, our analysis also highlights new proteins that can be used as anti-malarial targets. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 3 IS - 9 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030168 SP - e168 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030168 ER -