Iron and zinc in extracellular Toxoplasma gondii

Toxoplasma gondii is a eukaryotic, intracellular parasite of mammalian cells. Around 30% of the global population are infected and it is a major pathogen of sheep where it causes abortion, leading to significant economic losses. It also causes severe disease in immunocompromised people and pregnant women and can lead to eye disease and blindness. Parasites were here grown in human cells, mechanically released and span down on ply-L-lysine coated silicon nitride windows prior to fixing with 4% PFA and drying before mapping. Resulting XFM maps of Toxoplasma control (-ATc), equivalent to the wild type or after knockdown of TGME49_2761720 or ZFT (previously known as FIT) for 24 or 48 h. ZFT is predicted to be an iron and zinc transporter, based on homology to known zinc and iron permease domain (ZIP) containing proteins and predicted essentiality, however its function had not been assessed. Knockdown of the protein from other experiments demonstrated this protein was essential for the parasite and its deletion triggered metabolic and life cycle changes. Here, these data were to establish if knockdown of this transporter affected parasite associated iron and zinc.