{"id":6629,"date":"2016-03-03T18:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T17:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=6629"},"modified":"2024-08-16T23:35:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T21:35:35","slug":"1602-malaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping malaria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EMBL scientists have created the first detailed atlas of the start points where genes are expressed in the genome of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum<\/em>. The researchers hope this atlas, published today in Cell Reports<\/em>, will provide a new framework for understanding how and why gene expression changes across the parasite\u2019s life cycle in human blood cells, and may eventually open windows onto new therapeutic avenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization estimates that 438,000 people died from malaria in 2015, and nearly all of these deaths were caused by infection by the protozoan parasite P. falciparum<\/em>. Although its genome was sequenced in 2002, there\u2019s still a lot to learn about the parasite\u2019s biology and possible new ways of treating infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biologists have worked out what roughly half of P. falciparum<\/em>\u2019s genes do, but the function of the rest remains unclear. It\u2019s also known that some genes are expressed at different times in the life cycle of P. falciparum<\/em>. But it\u2019s been less clear exactly how the parasite controls gene expression during different stages of its life cycle, from its development inside a mosquito to its asexual reproduction in a human blood cell \u2013 the stage that causes most of the symptoms of malaria, and which was the focus of the new study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been long-awaited by the malaria research community<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One part of the puzzle of P. falciparum<\/em> gene expression is identifying regions of the genome where gene expression begins \u2013 so-called transcription start sites (TSSs). This is the challenge taken up in new research from the lab of Lars Steinmetz<\/a> at EMBL Heidelberg by Sophie Adjalley, Christophe Chabbert, Bernd Klaus and Vincent Pelechano. Together, they\u2019ve created the most detailed map to date of TSSs in the P. falciparum<\/em> genome. \u201cThis has been long-awaited by the malaria research community,\u201d says Adjalley, who is now based at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding TSSs in the P. falciparum<\/em> genome has been difficult in the past because it has an unusual composition, with A\/T base pairs making up 80\u201390% of the genome. To make their TSS map, Steinmetz and colleagues drew on their expertise in transcriptomics to tweak existing protocols for cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE) so they would work in P. falciparum<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting atlas shows that TSSs are widely distributed throughout the P. falciparum<\/em> genome. It also reveals that single genes may have a number of TSSs associated with them, enabling different versions \u2013 isoforms \u2013 of the gene to be expressed depending on the TSS that is used. Crucially, a subset of these genes switches between different TSSs depending on the life-cycle stage of P. falciparum<\/em>, providing a clue that the resulting isoforms have specific roles at particular times in the life cycle. \u201cThe next question is to work out the biological roles of these genes,\u201d says Adjalley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing so could open up new pathways for treating infection with P. falciparum<\/em>. But beyond the malaria research community, the new work offers a novel protocol for studying transcription mechanisms in general, and particularly for other nucleotide-biased genomes, such as the A\/T-rich genome of the soil-living social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum<\/em> that is often used as a model organism because it has a number of genes similar to those found in humans. \u201cWe hope that other researchers will find our approach useful, and to that end we provided a detailed description of the protocol we developed,\u201d says Adjalley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First detailed atlas of start points for genes expression in malaria-causing parasite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[42,43,3684,928,330,4726,329],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-6629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-genomics","tag-heidelberg","tag-infection-biology","tag-infectious-disease","tag-malaria","tag-parasite","tag-steinmetz"],"acf":{"article_intro":"

First detailed atlas of start points for genes expression in malaria-causing parasite<\/p>\n","related_links":false,"article_sources":[{"source_description":"

Adjalley SH et al. Cell Reports<\/em>, 3 March 2016. DOI:\u00a010.1016\/j.celrep.2016.02.025<\/p>\n","source_link_url":"http:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell-reports\/fulltext\/S2211-1247(16)30128-0"}],"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"\nMapping malaria | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"EMBL scientists create first detailed atlas of start points where genes are expressed in the genome of the malaria-causing parasite\u00a0Plasmodium falciparum.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mapping malaria | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EMBL scientists create first detailed atlas of start points where genes are expressed in the genome of the malaria-causing parasite\u00a0Plasmodium falciparum.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-03T17:00:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-16T21:35:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/steinmetz-NIAID-ib.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MultipleDraftz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Jones\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Jones\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d6f9a9ad53359d4230f851a583ec40ab\"},\"headline\":\"Mapping malaria\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-03T17:00:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-16T21:35:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\"},\"wordCount\":571,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/steinmetz-NIAID-ib.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"genomics\",\"heidelberg\",\"infection biology\",\"infectious disease\",\"malaria\",\"parasite\",\"steinmetz\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Science\",\"Science & Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\",\"name\":\"Mapping malaria | EMBL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/steinmetz-NIAID-ib.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-03T17:00:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-16T21:35:35+00:00\",\"description\":\"EMBL scientists create first detailed atlas of start points where genes are expressed in the genome of the malaria-causing parasite\u00a0Plasmodium falciparum.\u00a0\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1602-malaria\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/steinmetz-NIAID-ib.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/steinmetz-NIAID-ib.jpg\",\"width\":620,\"height\":425,\"caption\":\"Colorised scanning electron micrograph of red blood cell infected with malaria parasites (blue); uninfected cells with a smooth red surface. 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