Seminaris
"Variant expression in Plasmodium falciparum: beyond var genes"
16/12/2009
14.00 - 15.00 h
Seminari 2, Facultat de Medicina, Hospital Clínic
Clonal variant gene expression is a major survival strategy used by many pathogenic organisms. By switching on or off the transcription of specific genes, parasites can adapt to changing host conditions. Clonal variant expression was described in P. falciparum many years ago for var genes, a large gene family that mediates cytoadherence and antigenic variation, but recent work has demonstrated that clonal variant expression in this parasite occurs beyond var genes. This observation opens a new field of investigation of critical importance to understand the basic biology of host-parasite interactions in malaria. As a first step to characterise clonal variant expression in P. falciparum, we have performed a large microarray-based study to determine how widely variant expression occurs in the parasite genome and to define the set of P. falciparum genes that show variant expression (the variant-ome). We are also working on the characterisation of the epigenetic mechanisms that control variant gene expression for different gene families.
Alfred Cortés
Consultar seminaris anteriors
