For the malaria parasite to reach the blood of its human host, it must first enter the liver, where only a small number of parasites differentiate and replicate for upwards of seven days, making it a bottleneck in the parasite's lifecycle.
Stockholm UniversityAug 21 2024 For the malaria parasite to reach the blood of its human host, it must first enter the liver, where only a small number of parasites differentiate and replicate for upwards of seven days, making it a bottleneck in the parasite's lifecycle. This bottleneck makes the liver stage an optimal target for effective and long-lasting vaccines against the disease.
The combination of Spatial Transcriptomics technology, originally developed in Professor Lundeberg's group at KTH at SciLifeLab, and single-cell RNA-sequencing, allowed the researchers to chart the global gene expression of both the host and the parasite across Plasmodium berghei-infected mouse liver tissues, for the first time.
In comparison to the symptomatic blood stage, the liver stage of the malaria lifecycle is highly understudied, and the development of an effective vaccine is impeded by the current lack of knowledge. The generation of a spatial map of Plasmodium liver infection in the true tissue context is a major advance in addressing this knowledge gap.
Malaria Blood Cell Gene Gene Expression Genes Metabolism Pathogen Research RNA Technology Transcriptomics Vaccine
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