3 Man Job

One person coordinates collection from the factory, another delivers the core components, and a third assembles the final structure. It’s a foolproof system, and a new study has seen it in action as the parasite Toxoplasma gondii builds its inner membrane complex (IMC), a layer of flattened membrane sacs just beneath the parasite’s surface. The IMC is essential for movement, shape, and building new daughter cells during replication (pictured, component phospholipids (green) accumulating in the IMC (labelled pink) as daughter parasites develop from left to right). The researchers discovered that one protein (TgVPS13A) acts as a bridge between TgVAP in the endoplasmic reticulum, where phospholipids are made, and TgDAT1, which shuffles them between membrane layers, allowing both sides of the expanding IMC to grow. Crucially, when any of the three proteins were depleted, the parasites failed to replicate, highlighting their importance and perhaps suggesting future treatment targets.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Lin Zhao and colleagues
• State Key Laboratory of Animal Disease Control and Prevention, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Pathogens, June 2026