A single cell atlas of sexual development in Plasmodium falciparum

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dogga, Sunil Kumar; Rop, Jesse C.; Cudini, Juliana; Farr, Elias; Dara, Antoine; Ouologuem, Dinkorma; Djimde, Abdoulaye A.; Talman, Arthur M.; Lawniczak, Mara K. N.
• 署名单位: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg; University of Science & Technology of Bamako; Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD); Universite de Montpellier; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-14032
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adj4088
• 发表日期: 2024-05-03
• 关键词: human malaria parasite; female gametocytes; COMMITMENT; protein; membrane; transmission; reveals; differentiation; Visualization; cascade

摘要

The developmental decision made by malaria parasites to become sexual underlies all malaria transmission. Here, we describe a rich atlas of short- and long-read single-cell transcriptomes of over 37,000 Plasmodium falciparum cells across intraerythrocytic asexual and sexual development. We used the atlas to explore transcriptional modules and exon usage along sexual development and expanded it to include malaria parasites collected from four Malian individuals naturally infected with multiple P. falciparum strains. We investigated genotypic and transcriptional heterogeneity within and among these wild strains at the single-cell level, finding differential expression between different strains even within the same host. These data are a key addition to the Malaria Cell Atlas interactive data resource, enabling a deeper understanding of the biology and diversity of transmission stages.