Niehus, SebastianSmith, Terry K.Azzouz, NahidCampos, Marco A.Dubremetz, Jean-FrancoisGazzinelli, Ricardo TSchwarz, Ralph T.Debierre-Grockiego, Francoise2022-08-232022-08-232014-01-282014-10-20<p>PLoS One. 2014 Jan 28;9(1):e85386. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085386. eCollection 2014.<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085386">Link to article on publisher's site</a></p>1932-6203 (Linking)10.1371/journal.pone.008538624489660https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/30193Glycosylphosphatidylinositols (GPIs) from several protozoan parasites are thought to elicit a detrimental stimulation of the host innate immune system aside their main function to anchor surface proteins. Here we analyzed the GPI biosynthesis of an avirulent Toxoplasma gondii type 2 strain (PTG) by metabolic radioactive labeling. We determined the biological function of individual GPI species in the PTG strain in comparison with previously characterized GPI-anchors of a virulent strain (RH). The GPI intermediates of both strains were structurally similar, however the abundance of two of six GPI intermediates was significantly reduced in the PTG strain. The side-by-side comparison of GPI-anchor content revealed that the PTG strain had only approximately 34% of the protein-free GPIs as well as approximately 70% of the GPI-anchored proteins with significantly lower rates of protein N-glycosylation compared to the RH strain. All mature GPIs from both strains induced comparable secretion levels of TNF-alpha and IL-12p40, and initiated TLR4/MyD88-dependent NF-kappaBp65 activation in macrophages. Taken together, these results demonstrate that PTG and RH strains differ in their GPI biosynthesis and possess significantly different GPI-anchor content, while individual GPI species of both strains induce similar biological functions in macrophages.en-US© 2014 Niehus et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</a>, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ImmunityParasitic DiseasesParasitologyJournal Articlehttps://escholarship.umassmed.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1437&amp;context=faculty_pubs&amp;unstamped=1https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/faculty_pubs/4386251716faculty_pubs/438