The Apicoplast as a Potential Therapeutic Target in Toxoplasma and Other Apicomplexan Parasites: Some Additional Thoughts

Soldati (this issue) provides a thought-provoking Comment on the apicomplexan plastid, or ‘apicoplast’. It is very satisfying (if all-too-rare) when disparate areas of research converge, and this may account for the considerable interest aroused by studies on the apicoplast. Recent data have merged three lines of scientific inquiry into a single organelle: (1) the spherical body/Hohlzylinder/Golgi adjunct/organelle plurimembranaire, long noted by morphologists1; (2) the 35 kb episomal DNA described by molecular biologists2; and (3) the pharmacological target of classical antibacterial antibiotics (chloramphenicol, clindamycin, thiostrepton, ciprofloxacin, etc.) in apicomplexan parasites3–6.