Parasites FeS up: iron-sulfur cluster biogenesis in eukaryotic pathogens

Recently, it was demonstrated that the product of the isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway, isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP), could sustain growth of malaria parasites when the apicoplast was ablated by antibiotic treatment, suggesting that export of this metabolite to the cytosol is the only essential function of the apicoplast in the blood stages of the parasite lifecycle [9]. Since the SUF pathway supplies FeS clusters to two enzymes of the pathway that produces IPP, this finding also strongly suggests that FeS cluster biogenesis in the apicoplast is essential for parasite viability. [...]the enzymes of the SUF pathway are attractive candidates for development of new drug targets because of their essentiality as well as their prokaryotic origin, which makes them significantly different from any enzymes found in the host cell.