Anthony Holder discusses the current state of malaria vaccine research, and proposes new areas of focus for moving forward, including immunity, merozoites, and assay development.
Image Credit: Tim Brauhn
Taylor et al. propose that glypican-1 acts as a scaffold facilitating the favorable interaction of the misfolded, infectious form of the prion protein with the normal cellular form within cholesterol-rich lipid rafts. Their results indicate that glypican-1 is intimately involved in the misfolding of the prion protein.
Cavaleiro et al. characterize blood plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC), important mediators between innate and acquired immunity, in HIV-2 infection. Overall, their data suggest that the presence of virus in circulation, although not critical for the reduction in pDC number, appears to be central for the impairment of their function.
Waidner et al. show that H. pylori has a novel type of system setting up helical cell shape, not previously described for any bacterium. They demonstrate that the helical cell shape depends on coiled coil rich proteins, which form extended filamentous structures in vitro and in vivo, and are differentially required for the maintenance of proper cell morphology.
PLoS Pathogens is an open-access journal that publishes important new ideas on bacteria, fungi, parasites, prions, and viruses that contribute to our understanding of the biology of pathogens and pathogen-host interactions.
E-mail Alerts
RSS (What is RSS?)
Join PLoSRead the PLoS Blog 
and contribute your views on scientific research and open-access publishing.
All site content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
