Plasmodium falciparum is a protozoan parasite that causes the most virulent o f human malarias. The asexual blood-stage organism invades and multiplies in a vacuole in the mature erythrocyte. During intravacuolar growth, it induces the formation of a novel network o f tubovesicular membranes, the TVM, that is not present in uninfected red blood cells. Recent data suggest that sphingomyelin biosynthesis by the parasite is an essential requirement for the assembly o f the TVM. Furthermore, sphingolipid synthesis as well as the formation and function o f the TVM may provide new targets for chemotherapy against malaria parasites.
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Kasturi Haldar (1996) studied this question.
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