Centrins are important components of animal and protozoan centrioles and basal bodies, since they control centrosome duplication and the formation and function of flagella. In Toxoplasma gondii, Centrin2 (CEN2) additionally localises to various cytoskeletal structures at the apical and basal side of the parasite. In their study, Jacqueline Leung, Jun Liu, Laura Wetzel and Ke Hu (Leung et al., 2019) now analyse the function of this specialised centrin. Through both transcriptional repression and induced degradation of CEN2, they manage to deplete CEN2 at preconoidal rings and peripheral annuli, although a low level of CEN2 persists at centrioles and the basal complex. Nonetheless, this depletion of CEN2 is sufficient to prevent T. gondii from undergoing the multiple rounds of the lytic cycle that allows the parasite to spread within the host. The authors further demonstrate that CEN2-depleted parasites are unable to invade host cells efficiently. Accordingly, secretion of micronemal adhesins, which mediate the attachment of T. gondii to host cells, is diminished. Moreover, CEN2 depletion results in abnormal replication of the parasite within host cells, an effect likely caused by its reduced levels at centrioles, whose segregation is perturbed in CEN2-depleted parasites. Overall, these results show that CEN2 mediates various aspects of the T. gondii life cycle, possibly by regulating specialised functions at the cytoskeletal structures it is incorporated in.

• © 2019. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd