Cell: gene knockout research may help identify multiple Plasmodium targets, which is expected to develop new antimalarial therapies

December 10, 2019 / BIOON/ --Although scientists have made great efforts in medicine and science, more than 400000 people around the world still die of malaria This infectious disease is transmitted by the mosquito population infected with Plasmodium The genome of Plasmodium is small, with only about 5000 genes Compared with human cells, each single gene of Plasmodium has only one copy If a gene is removed from the genome, the phenotype of Plasmodium will change directly Photo source: Institut f ü R Zellbiologie, Universit ä t Bern recently, in a research report published in the international journal Cell, scientists from the University of Berne and other institutions identified a number of new targets of Plasmodium through research They carried out genome-wide knockout research on Plasmodium, especially removed more than 1300 single genes, and observed its impact on the whole life cycle of Plasmodium In this paper, the researchers use the established Plasmodium model to study, and each of the more than 1300 genes will be inherited by a single gene The code can be replaced to help analyze and remove the impact of these single genes on Plasmodium Using these single codes can help researchers analyze more parasites at the same time, which greatly shortens the analysis time After three years of research, researchers have successfully and systematically screened the genome of each stage of the life cycle of Plasmodium The elimination and screening research can help researchers identify hundreds of targets, especially the special targets for the metabolism of Plasmodium In order to analyze a large number of identified metabolic genes, the researchers worked together to develop special models to reveal the basic metabolic pathways in Plasmodium cells, with the help of these models, it is possible for researchers to predict which unknown genes are very important for Plasmodium and how to control it as a development New treatment for transmission of infection Last researcher Ellen Dr Bushell said that the whole genome screening and the corresponding metabolic model research may show a major breakthrough in malaria research The results of this study support many malaria research results around the world Now researchers can focus on the necessary Plasmodium genes selected above, and develop effective drugs and vaccines to deal with different life stages of malaria infection Original sources: Rebecca R Stanley, Ellen Bushell, anush Chi app ino Pepe, et al Genome scale identification of essential metallic processes for targeting the plasma lid stage, cell, volume 179, issue 5, 14 November 2019, pages 1112-1128.e26 doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.10.030