Fig. 4: Organelle replication in iKD TgAP2IX-5 throughout the tachyzoite asexual cell cycle.

a Schematic representation of the chronological order of organellar division throughout a normal Toxoplasma gondii cell cycle. Nuclear cycle is indicated in green and budding cycle is indicated in blue. Timeframe of each organelle division is represented by length of representative organelle. b Confocal microscopy of iKD TgAP2IX-5 parasite with labelled plastid (red) and Golgi (green) in the presence and absence of overnight auxin treatment. The lower panel clearly represents the elongated plastid phenotype. DAPI was used to stain the nucleus. Scale bar is indicated at the lower right side of each image. c Bar graph representing the ratio of Golgi: nucleus using the parental and iKD TgAP2IX-5 strains in the absence and presence of overnight auxin treatment. A Student’s t-test was performed, two-tailes p-values: p = 0.0948 (iKD TgAP2IX-5 +auxin compared to Parental Tir1 −auxin), p = 0.1039 (iKD TgAP2IX-5 +auxin compared to Parental Tir1 +auxin), p = 0.1030 (iKD TgAP2IX-5 +auxin compared to iKD TgAP2IX-5 −auxin); mean ± s.d. (n = 3 independent experiments). d Bar graph representing the ratio of plastid to nucleus using the parental and iKD TgAP2IX-5 strains in the absence and presence of overnight auxin treatment. A Student’s t-test was performed, two-tailed p-values: ****P < 0.0001; mean ± s.d. (n = 3 independent experiments). e Bar graph representing the percentage of parental and iKD TgAP2IX-5 parasites with an elongated plastid in the absence and presence of overnight auxin treatment. A Student’s t-test was performed, two-tailed p-values: ****P < 0.0001; mean ± s.d. (n = 3 independent experiments).