Global analysis of transcript and protein levels across the Plasmodium falciparum life cycle

Abstract

To investigate the role of post-transcriptional controls in the regulation of protein expression for the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, we have compared mRNA transcript and protein abundance levels for seven different stages of the parasite life cycle. A moderately high positive relationship between mRNA and protein abundance was observed for these stages; the most common discrepancy was a delay between mRNA and protein accumulation. Potentially post-transcriptionally regulated genes are identified, and families of functionally related genes were observed to share similar patterns of mRNA and protein accumulation

A glimpse into the clinical proteome of human malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax

“…In addition, we have carried out similar proteomics analysis with laboratory strain 3D7 (Supporting Information S3). Our study detected five proteins in clinical isolates that have never been detected earlier in any asexual stages of parasites (Table 1) [12,14,15]. In case of peripheral blood Pv, almost all proteins have been detected for the first time since this is the first report on clinical protein profile of Pv (Table 2).…”

“…However we cannot rule out the possibility that some of these may be found in lab cultures in future studies. (ii) Early ring stages from clinical isolates of Pf express 16 unique proteins not found in the proteome of laboratory strain 3D7 ring stage (Table 1) [12]. (iii) Early rings from clinical isolates of Pf express many known potential drug targets in malaria such as plasmepsins I and IV, LDH, phosphoglycerate kinase, enolase, glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, and S-adenosyl homocysteinase (Fig.…”

“…2, Table 3) [32,33]. Pf encodes for 5237 proteins, of which 717 have been reported in the ring stage of the laboratory-cultivated parasite [12]. This study has pooled data from seven independent preparations of the ring stage from laboratory cultures in order to identify 717 proteins in comparison to the single clinical parasite sample used in our study that has yielded 88 Pf -encoded proteins.…”

“…Infected erythrocytes were enriched from these samples, fractionated, and total proteome of the circulating parasites were analyzed. From this study, we have identified 88 proteins from Pf and 16 proteins from Pv and compared them with the proteome profile of ring stages of the laboratory strain 3D7 [12,14,15]. Our analysis reveals the presence of known and potential drug targets as well as proteins that are abundantly expressed in patient-derived parasites but never reported in laboratory cultures.…”

“…In addition, studies that correlate the transcriptome and proteome data from laboratory cultures of Pf indicate that there is a significant time delay between the abundance of transcripts and corresponding proteins in the asexual stages of the parasite [12]. For example, histone transcripts are present at low levels in the ring stages, but accumulate to very high levels in the trophozoite and schizont stages.…”