Research Interests

Plasmodium, a protozoan that cause malaria, has a wonderfully complex development that involves over a dozen of different stages. Many of these stages develop in different cellular environments and contain stage-specific proteins and specialized organelles, which are produced and disposed as and when required. The parasite not only breaks down host cellular contents to obtain nutrients, it also enslaves many host proteins for its benefit. While limited understanding of the Plasmodium biology is a major hurdle to develop new vaccines and drugs, the presence of non-canonical cellular processes necessitates investigation of parasite-specific cellular processes. My lab is investigating “regulation of multiplication, genome fidelity and organelle function in the malaria parasite Plasmodium” with a goal to identify the candidates for development of vaccines and drugs

Selected Publications

Rizvi Z, Reddy GS, Gorde SM, Pundir P, Das D, Sijwali PS. Plasmodium falciparum contains functional SCF and CRL4 ubiquitin E3 ligases, and CRL4 is critical for cell division and membrane integrity. PLOS Pathogens 20(2): e1012045. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1012045.

Tanneru N , Nivya MA , Adhikari N, Saxena K, Rizvi R, Sudhakar R, Nagwani AK, Atul , Abdul Al-Nihmi FM, Kumar KA, Sijwali PS. Plasmodium DDI1 is a potential therapeutic target and important chromatin-associated protein. Int J Parasitol. 2023 Jan 16;S0020 7519(23)00013-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2022.11.007.

Sudhakar R, Das D, Thanumalayan S, Gorde S, Sijwali PS. Plasmodium falciparum Atg18 localizes to the food vacuole via interaction with the multi-drug resistance protein 1 and phosphatidylinositol 3 phosphate. Biochem J. 2021 May 14;478(9):1705-1732. doi: 10.1042/BCJ20210001.

Navale R, Atul, Allanki AD and Sijwali PS. (2014) Characterization of the autophagy marker protein Atg8 reveals atypical features of autophagy in Plasmodium falciparum. PLoS One 9(11): e113220. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113220.

Singhal N, Atul, Mastan B, Arun Kumar K and Sijwali PS. (2014) Genetic ablation of plasmoDJ1, a multi-activity enzyme, attenuates parasite virulence and reduces oocyst production. Biochem. J. 461 (189–203). DOI: 10.1042/BJ20140051.

Scholar profile