Project description:The purpose of this project was to identify targets and substrates of Protein kinase PfPK2 in malaria parasite P. falciparum. These studies will help understand the mechanisms via which PfPK2, which is indispensable for the parasite survival, regulates parasite development. For this purpose, PfPK2-loxP parasite line was generated for conditional knock down of PfPK2 using rapamycin (RAP), which was used to induce the dimerization of active Cre-recombinase resulting in the depletion of PfPK2.
Project description:Blood feeding is an integral process of the malaria vector Anopheles required for its physiological functions and its propagation. During blood feeding, presence of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium in the blood induces several host effector molecules including microRNAs which play important roles in the development and maturation of the parasite within the mosquito. The present study was undertaken to elucidate the dynamic expression of miRNAs during gonotrophic cycle and parasite development in Anopheles stephensi.For this purpose, miRNA microarray was done in sugar fed, 42 hours post blood fed and 42 hours post infected blood fed female mosquitoes to identify regulated miRNAs under these conditions.
Project description:Blood feeding is an integral process of the malaria vector Anopheles required for its physiological functions and its propagation. During blood feeding, presence of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium in the blood induces several host effector molecules including microRNAs which play important roles in the development and maturation of the parasite within the mosquito. The present study was undertaken to elucidate the dynamic expression of miRNAs during gonotrophic cycle and parasite development in Anopheles stephensi.For this purpose, small RNA sequencing was done in sugar fed, 42 hours and 5 days post blood fed and infected blood fed female mosquitoes to identify regulated miRNAs under these conditions.
Project description:PfPPM2, a protein phosphatase, plays a key role in regulating both the asexual and sexual development of the human malaria parasite P. falciparum. To understand the mechanisms by which PfPPM2 influences this process, it was essential to identify its targets or substrates within the parasite. To achieve this, we conducted a comparative phosphoproteomic analysis between PfPPM2 depletion mutants and wild-type lines.
Project description:Prediction of the antimalarial potential of small molecules using data from various chemical libraries that were screened against the asexual and sexual (gametocyte) stages of the parasite. Several compounds’ molecular fingerprints were used to train machine learning models to recognize stage-specific active and inactive compounds.
Model Type: Predictive machine learning model.
Model Relevance: Probability of inhibition of the malaria parasite growth.
Model Encoded by: Gemma Turon (Ersilia)
Metadata Submitted in BioModels by: Zainab Ashimiyu-Abdusalam
Implementation of this model code by Ersilia is available here:
https://github.com/ersilia-os/eos80ch
Project description:Cerebral malaria is the most deadly manifestation of infection with Plasmodium falciparum. The pathology of cerebral malaria is characterised by the accumulation of infected erythrocytes in the microvasculature of the brain, due to parasite adhesins on the surface of infected erythrocytes binding to human receptors on microvascular endothelial cells. The parasite and host molecules involved in this interaction are unknown. We used the Human Brain Endothelial Cell line HBEC-5i to identify the malaria parasite ligands responsible for binding to human brain endothelial cells. Three P. falciparum strains (HB3, 3D7 and IT/FCR3) were selected for binding to HBEC5i and the whole transcriptome of selected and unselected parasites was analysed using a variant surface antigen-supplemented microarray chip. After selection, the only highly upregulated genes were a subset of group A-like var genes (HB3var3, 3D7_PFD0020c, ITvar7 and ITvar19), that showed 11 to >100-fold higher transcription levels in selected parasites. These genes are highly diverse in sequence, but do however show strong similarities in PfEMP1 architecture. Antibodies raised to the HB3var3 variant recognized the surface of infected erythrocytes and abolished the binding of infected erythrocytes to brain endothelial cells. The subset of Group A PfEMP1 variants identified here provides a new target for interventions to treat or prevent cerebral malaria.
Project description:Investigation of whole genome expression profiles during four time points during the intraerythrocytic lifecycle of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum for transcript isoforms using Exon Arrays. The samples used in this study are further described in Turnbull et. al., Simultaneous Genome-Wide Gene Expression and Transcript Isoform Profiling in the Human Malaria Parasite (in review)
Project description:Investigation of whole genome expression profiles during four time points during the intraerythrocytic lifecycle of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum for transcript isoforms using Exon Arrays. The samples used in this study are further described in Turnbull et. al., Simultaneous Genome-Wide Gene Expression and Transcript Isoform Profiling in the Human Malaria Parasite (in review)
Project description:Rodent malaria parasite RNA hybridized on Illumina Mouse WG-6 v2.0 Expression BeadChip To investigate whether parasite RNA interfere with mouse beadchip analaysis. Malaria parasite resides in red blood cell, therefore RNA isolated from whole infected blood contains host RNA as well as parasite RNA