Distribution of PfVPS35 upon chloroquine and compound 5f treatment in P. falciparum 3D7 strain. Parasite was treated with different compounds as described in Materials and Methods followed by fixing and immunostaining of PfRab7 and PfVPS35. Scale bar in each picture indicates 5 μm. Data presented that DV disruption by CQ resulted in diffused signals from PfVPS35 indicating towards disassembly of retromer complex while there was no apparent effect on PfVPS35 distribution in atovaquone-treated cells. However, there was no significant change in the distribution of PfRab7 indicating that its targeting was not affected by CQ. DV disrupter molecule, compound 5f, which has been earlier shown to inhibit hemozoin formation in the DV of the parasite leading to its disruption and subsequent parasite death. We found that this molecule affected the cellular distribution of PfVPS35 in similar fashion,

Siddiqui AA, Saha D, Iqbal MS, Saha SJ, Sarkar S, Banerjee C, Nag S, Mazumder S, De R, Pramanik S, Debsharma S, Bandyopadhyay U. Rab7 of Plasmodium falciparum is involved in its retromer complex assembly near the digestive vacuole. Biochim Biophys Acta Gen Subj. 2020 Jun 5:129656.