Identification of gene features important for post-transcriptional regulation of Plasmodium falciparum invasion genes.

Plasmodium falciparum, the major cause of human malaria, is able to up-regulate various ligands to invade erythrocytes possessing different receptors in a process known as invasion-pathway switching. Recent evidence from the W2mef P. falciparum clone has shown that this switch involves the post-tran...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Goh, Zewei.
Other Authors: Preiser, Peter Rainer
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/16315
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:Plasmodium falciparum, the major cause of human malaria, is able to up-regulate various ligands to invade erythrocytes possessing different receptors in a process known as invasion-pathway switching. Recent evidence from the W2mef P. falciparum clone has shown that this switch involves the post-transcriptional regulation (PTR) of many invasion-related genes in addition to previously characterized mechanisms. To identify gene features responsible for this PTR, the 5’ un-translated regions (UTR) of 7 genes up-regulated at the protein level were cloned into luciferase-reporter plasmids and then transfected into both normal W2mef and W2mef clones that had switched invasion pathways. No difference in luciferase activity was observed between transfected switched and un-switched clones, suggesting that motifs within the 5’ UTR of invasion genes are either not responsible for, or insufficient to drive PTR in P. falciparum.