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

Carrington, E., Otto, T. D. , Szestak, T., Lennartz, F., Higgins, M. K., Newbold, C. I. and Craig, A. G. (2018) In silico guided reconstruction and analysis of ICAM-1-binding var genes from Plasmodium falciparum. Scientific Reports, 8, 3282. (doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21591-8) (PMID:29459671) (PMCID:PMC5818487)

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Abstract

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. In a subset of the strains available we were able to produce validated, full-length var gene sequences and use these to conduct biophysical analyses of the ICAM-1 binding regions.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Otto, Professor Thomas
Authors: Carrington, E., Otto, T. D., Szestak, T., Lennartz, F., Higgins, M. K., Newbold, C. I., and Craig, A. G.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity
Journal Name:Scientific Reports
Publisher:Nature Research
ISSN:2045-2322
ISSN (Online):2045-2322
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2018 The Authors
First Published:First published in Scientific Reports 8:3282
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
525071Cytoadherence-mediated pathology in cerebral malariaJames BrewerWellcome Trust (WELLCOTR)095507/Z/11/ZIII -IMMUNOLOGY