To visualize apicoplast morphology a cassette was added to the plasmid expressing the first 55 amino acids of the P. falciparum Acyl Carrier Protein (ACP) fused to the N-terminus of a codon-optimized variant of GFP called Super Folder Green (SFG). To drive expression of the apicoplast trafficked SFG (api-SFG). Fluorescent labeling of the apicoplast organelle in PfMev parasites and confirmation via co-localization. A) Live fluorescence microscopy of the PfMev line expressing the signal sequence and transit peptide from ACP fused to SFG (green), the mitochondria was stained with MitoTracker (red), and nuclear DNA was stained with DAPI (blue). B) Immunofluorescence co-localization of aSFG with the apicoplast marker ACP, with α-ACP (green), α-GFP (red), with nuclear DNA stained with DAPI (blue) in fixed PfMev parasites. Images depict fields that are 10 microns long by 10 microns wide.

Swift RP, Rajaram K, Liu HB, Dziedzic A, Jedlicka AE, Roberts AD, Matthews KA, Jhun H, Bumpus NN, Tewari SG, Wallqvist A, Prigge ST. A mevalonate bypass system facilitates elucidation of plastid biology in malaria parasites. PLoS Pathog. 2020 16(2):e1008316.