GSE145731 RNA-Seq Analysis Illuminates the Early Stages of Plasmodium Liver infection

Contributors : Maria Toro-Moreno ; Kayla SylvesterSeries Type : Expression profiling by high throughput sequencingOrganism : Homo sapiens ; Plasmodium bergheiThe apicomplexan parasites Plasmodium spp. are the causative agents of malaria, a disease that poses a significant global health burden. Plasmodium spp. initiate infection of the human host by transforming and replicating within hepatocytes. Yet, despite the liver stage being a critical step during infection, most transcriptomic studies have focused on more technically accessible stages of the Plasmodium life cycle, limiting our ability to target these parasites to prevent disease. We have conducted an extensive RNA-seq analysis of the Plasmodium berghei liver stage at high-resolution, covering early (2 —18 hpi) and mid-stages (24—48 hpi) of the liver stage of infection. Our data revealed hundreds of genes are differentially expressed as early as 2 hours post-infection, and that multiple genes shown to be important for later infection may be upregulated as early as 12 hpi. Using hierarchical cl ustering along with co-expression analysis, we identified clusters functionally enriched for important liver-stage processes such as interactions with the host cell and redox homeostasis. Furthermore, some of these clusters were highly correlated to the expression of ApiAP2 transcription factors, wh ile showing enrichment of mostly uncharacterized DNA binding motifs hinting at alternative uncharacterized targets during this...
Source: GEO: Gene Expression Omnibus - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Tags: Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing Homo sapiens Plasmodium berghei Source Type: research