Host and Parasite Transcriptomic Changes upon Successive Plasmodium falciparum Infections in Early Childhood
Author
Bradwell, Katie RCoulibaly, Drissa
Koné, Abdoulaye K
Laurens, Matthew B
Dembélé, Ahmadou
Tolo, Youssouf
Traoré, Karim
Niangaly, Amadou
Berry, Andrea A
Kouriba, Bourema
Plowe, Christopher V
Doumbo, Ogobara K
Lyke, Kirsten E
Takala-Harrison, Shannon
Thera, Mahamadou A
Travassos, Mark A
Serre, David
Date
2020-08Journal
mSystemsPublisher
American Society for MicrobiologyType
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Children are highly susceptible to clinical malaria, and in regions where malaria is endemic, their immune systems must face successive encounters with Plasmodium falciparum parasites before they develop immunity, first against severe disease and later against uncomplicated malaria. Understanding cellular and molecular interactions between host and parasites during an infection could provide insights into the processes underlying this gradual acquisition of immunity, as well as to how parasites adapt to infect hosts that are successively more malaria experienced. Here, we describe methods to analyze the host and parasite gene expression profiles generated simultaneously from blood samples collected from five consecutive symptomatic P. falciparum infections in three Malian children. We show that the data generated enable statistical assessment of the proportions of (i) each white blood cell subset and (ii) the parasite developmental stages, as well as investigations of host-parasite gene coexpression. We also use the sequences generated to analyze allelic variations in transcribed regions and determine the complexity of each infection. While limited by the modest sample size, our analyses suggest that host gene expression profiles primarily clustered by individual, while the parasite gene expression profiles seemed to differentiate early from late infections. Overall, this study provides a solid framework to examine the mechanisms underlying acquisition of immunity to malaria infections using whole-blood transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq).IMPORTANCE We show that dual RNA-seq from patient blood samples allows characterization of host/parasite interactions during malaria infections and can provide a solid framework to study the acquisition of antimalarial immunity, as well as the adaptations of P. falciparum to malaria-experienced hosts.Rights/Terms
Copyright © 2020 Bradwell et al.Identifier to cite or link to this item
http://hdl.handle.net/10713/13714ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1128/mSystems.00116-20