Quantitative time-course profiling of Plasmodium falciparum transcripts and proteins throughout the 48-hour intraerythrocytic developmental cycle
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ABSTRACT: Quantitative studies of the P. falciparum transcriptome have shown that the tightly controlled progression of the parasite through the intraerythrocytic developmental cycle (IDC) is accompanied by a continuous gene expression cascade where most expressed genes exhibit a single transcriptional peak. Since proteins represent the decisive business end of gene expression, understanding the correlation between mRNA and protein levels is crucial for inferring biological activity from transcriptional gene expression data. While pertinent studies on other organisms show that as little as 20-40% of protein abundance variation may be attributable to corresponding mRNA levels, the situation in Plasmodium is further complicated by the dynamic nature of the cyclic gene expression cascade where the mRNA levels of most genes change constantly during the IDC. In this study, we simultaneously determined mRNA and protein abundance profiles for P. falciparum parasites during the IDC at 2-hour resolution based on spotted oligonucleotide microarrays and 2D-protein gels in combination with DIGE fluorescent dyes. Intriguingly, most proteins are represented by more than one isoform, presumably due to post-translational modifications. Analysis of 366 protein abundance profiles and the corresponding mRNA levels shows that in 67.2% of cases the protein abundance peaks at least 8 hours after the mRNA level peak. While it may be tempting to interpret this as evidence for widespread post-transcriptional gene regulation additional analyses including computer modeling demonstrate that in >60% of these cases the observed protein profiles including the peak lag times could arise as a consequence of the corresponding mRNA levels when simple translation and degradation dynamics are assumed. We further characterize and illustrate these dynamics and show that even human host proteins within the parasite may be subject to similar dynamics as their parasite counterparts. 24 timepoint samples were harvested from a tightly synchronous 6.5 liter biofermenter culture of P. falciparum (Dd2) at 2-hour intervals during one entire intraerythrocytic developmental cycle and compared against a 3D7 RNA reference pool.
ORGANISM(S): Plasmodium falciparum
SUBMITTER: Bernardo Foth
PROVIDER: E-GEOD-24416 | biostudies-arrayexpress |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress
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