The three Aurora-related kinases display distinct temporal and spatial associations with mitotic structures in asexual blood stage parasites and gametocytes.

Aurora kinases are crucial regulators of mitotic cell cycle progression in eukaryotes. The protozoan malaria parasite replicates via schizogony, a specialized mode of cell division characterized by consecutive asynchronous rounds of nuclear division by closed mitosis followed by a single cytokinesis event producing dozens of daughter cells. encodes three Aurora-related kinases (PfARKs) that have been reported essential for parasite proliferation, but their roles in regulating schizogony have not yet been explored in great detail.

CRISPR/Cas9-engineered inducible gametocyte producer lines as a valuable tool for Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission research.

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum replicates inside erythrocytes in the blood of infected humans. During each replication cycle, a small proportion of parasites commits to sexual development and differentiates into gametocytes, which are essential for parasite transmission via the mosquito vector. Detailed molecular investigation of gametocyte biology and transmission has been hampered by difficulties in generating large numbers of these highly specialised cells.

The ApiAP2 factor PfAP2-HC is an integral component of heterochromatin in the malaria parasite .

Malaria parasites undergo a complex life cycle in the human host and the mosquito vector. The ApiAP2 family of DNA-binding proteins plays a dominant role in parasite development and life cycle progression. Most ApiAP2 factors studied to date act as transcription factors regulating stage-specific gene expression.

GDV1 induces sexual commitment of malaria parasites by antagonizing HP1-dependent gene silencing.

Malaria is caused by parasites that proliferate in the bloodstream. During each replication cycle, some parasites differentiate into gametocytes, the only forms able to infect the mosquito vector and transmit malaria. Sexual commitment is triggered by activation of AP2-G, the master transcriptional regulator of gametocytogenesis.

In silico guided reconstruction and analysis of ICAM-1-binding var genes from Plasmodium falciparum.

The Plasmodium falciparum variant surface antigen PfEMP1 expressed on the surface of infected erythrocytes is thought to play a major role in the pathology of severe malaria. As the sequence pool of the var genes encoding PfEMP1 expands there are opportunities, despite the high degree of sequence diversity demonstrated by this gene family, to reconstruct full-length var genes from small sequence tags generated from patient isolates. To test whether this is possible we have used a set of recently laboratory adapted ICAM-1-binding parasite isolates to generate sequence tags and, from these, to identify the full-length PfEMP1 being expressed by them.