Identification of distinct metabolic perturbations and associated immunomodulatory events during intra-erythrocytic development stage of pediatric Plasmodium falciparum malaria (part-III)
Project description:The goal of this study was to interrogate the impact of metabolic perturbations during P. falciparum infection on the host immune response in a cohort of West African children sampled and profiled before and during infection. Here, we use integrative metabolomics-transcriptomic approach to the investigate potential immunomodulatory effects of serum metabolites during the blood stage of infection.
Project description:Distinct metabolic perturbations associated with pediatric Plasmodium falciparum malaria during Intra-erythrocytic development stage
Project description:Transcriptional variation has been studied but post-transcriptional modification due to RNA editing has not been investigated in Plasmodium. We investigated developmental stage-specific RNA editing in selected genes in Plasmodium falciparum 3D7. We detected extensive amination- and deamination-type RNA editing at 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, and 46 h in tightly synchronized Plasmodium. Most of the editing events were observed in 8 and 16 h ring-stage parasites. Extensive A-to-G deamination-type editing was detected more during the 16 h ring stage (25%) than the 8 h ring stage (20%). Extensive U-to-C amination-type editing was detected more during the 16 h ring stage (31%) than the 8 h ring stage (22%). In 28S, rRNA editing converted the loop structure to the stem structure. The hemoglobin binding activity of PF3D7_0216900 was also altered due to RNA editing. Among the expressed 28S rRNA genes, PF3D7_0532000 and PF3D7_0726000 expression was higher. Increased amounts of the transcripts of these two genes were found, particularly PF3D7_0726000 in the ring stage and PF3D7_0532000 in the trophozoite and schizont stages. Adenosine deaminase (ADA) expression did not correlate with the editing level. This first experimental report of RNA editing will help to identify the editing machinery that might be useful for antimalarial drug discovery and malaria control.
Project description:The microarray experiments were carried out using a long oligonucleotide DNA microarray that represent all 5363 P. falciparum genes with one oligonucleotide per 1.9kb of coding sequence on average (Hu et al. 2007). Total 247 microarray experiments were carried out including 29-drug treatment time courses with 20 compounds and corresponding untreated controls from different drug or inhibitor treatment. Data of each drug/inhibitor experiment were normalized using a linear normalization and background filtering as implemented by the NOMAD database (http://derisilab.ucsf.edu). Time-series sampling and experiments with synchronized ex vivo culturing parasites. Each experiment has treatment and controls, and starts at a specific time of post invasion. For an example of quinine treatment, the treatments start from late ring stage through trophozoite stage of the parasites. First, IC50 is determined by drug assay with synchronized parasites (5% parasiteomia and 2% RBC). Second, synchronized parasite cultures are splitted into 12 flasks (75ml culture/flask) for a 6 time-point time-series experiment. 6 flasks are treated with quinine (final concentration is IC50) and 6 flasks are negative controls. 1,2,4,6,8 and 10 hrs after the treatment, parasites in each flask were harvested for total RNA isolation and microarray hybridizaiton.
Project description:The microarray experiments were carried out using a long oligonucleotide DNA microarray that represent all 5363 P. falciparum genes with one oligonucleotide per 1.9kb of coding sequence on average (Hu et al. 2007). Total 247 microarray experiments were carried out including 29-drug treatment time courses with 20 compounds and corresponding untreated controls from different drug or inhibitor treatment. Data of each drug/inhibitor experiment were normalized using a linear normalization and background filtering as implemented by the NOMAD database (http://derisilab.ucsf.edu).
Project description:Transmission of malaria depends on the successful development of the sexual stages of the parasite within the midgut of the mosquito vector. The differentiation process leading to the production of the sexual stages is delineated by several developmental switches. Arresting the progression through this sexual differentiation pathway would effectively block the spread of the disease. The successful development of such transmission-blocking agents is hampered by the lack of a detailed understanding of the program of gene expression that governs sexual differentiation of the parasite. Here we describe the isolation and functional characterization of the Plasmodium falciparum pfs16 and pfs25 promoters, whose activation marks the developmental switches executed during the sexual differentiation process. We have studied the differential activation of the pfs16 and pfs25 promoters during intraerythrocytic development by transfection of P. falciparum and during gametogenesis and early sporogonic development by transfection of the related malarial parasite P. gallinaceum. Our data indicate that the promoter of the pfs16 gene is activated at the onset of gametocytogenesis, while the activity of the pfs25 promoter is induced following the transition to the mosquito vector. Both promoters have unusual DNA compositions and are extremely A/T rich. We have identified the regions in the pfs16 and pfs25 promoters that are essential for high transcriptional activity. Furthermore, we have identified a DNA-binding protein, termed PAF-1, which activates pfs25 transcription in the mosquito midgut. The data presented here shed the first light on the details of processes of gene regulation in the important human pathogen P. falciparum.
Project description:Ring-infected erythrocytes are the predominant asexual stage in the peripheral circulation but are rarely investigated in the context of acquired immunity against Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Here we compare antibody-dependent phagocytosis of ring-infected parasite cultures in samples from a controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) study (NCT02739763). Protected volunteers did not develop clinical symptoms, maintained parasitaemia below a predefined threshold of 500 parasites/μl and were not treated until the end of the study. Antibody-dependent phagocytosis of both ring-infected and uninfected erythrocytes from parasite cultures was strongly correlated with protection. A surface proteomic analysis revealed the presence of merozoite proteins including erythrocyte binding antigen-175 and -140 on ring-infected and uninfected erythrocytes, providing an additional antibody-mediated protective mechanism for their activity beyond invasion-inhibition. Competition phagocytosis assays support the hypothesis that merozoite antigens are the key mediators of this functional activity. Targeting ring-stage parasites may contribute to the control of parasitaemia and prevention of clinical malaria.
Project description:Patients infected with Plasmodium falciparum sustain diverse disease outcome; we wanted to determine if parasites derived ex vivo have diverse biological states. To explore parasite in vivo biology we measured parasite steady state whole genome transcription using a previously reported custom made Affy array (Scrmalaria) based on the laboratory strain 3D7. Extensive bioinformatic analysis was carried out including cross species comparisions to yeast. For sample cluster analysis, a filtered gene list containing 3937 genes was generated by thresholding gene expression levels to a minimum of 50 EU and removing any genes that varied less than 3 fold or 100 EU across the dataset. To minimize potential effects of different dates of collection and hybridizations, the data was rank ordered by expression level and each gene was given an ordinal value. Keywords: ex vivo