The exoneme helps malaria parasites to break out of blood cells

Abstract

Malaria parasites must invade the erythrocytes of its host, to be able to grow and multiply. Having depleted the host cell of its nutrients, the parasites break out to invade new erythrocytes. In this issue of Cell, Yeoh et al. (2007) discover a new organelle, the exoneme, that contains a protease SUB1, which helps the parasite to escape from old erythrocytes and invade new ones.