Genome organization as a master regulator of transcription during the transmission stages of Plasmodium parasites

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that, in humans, is transmitted via one of five parasites from the genus Plasmodium. The development of Plasmodium species throughout passage through the female Anopheles mosquito and human host is controlled by coordinated changes in gene expression. A relative paucity of specific transcription factors points towards the involvement of complementary regulatory mechanisms to control gene expression. Given the abundance of chromatin remodeling enzymes in Plasmodium genomes, we explored the role of global and local chromatin structure in gene regulation. We performed chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) to construct consensus three-dimensional genome models for distinct stages and species of the parasite life cycle including P. falciparum asexual and sexual stages in human and the mosquito vector as well as P. vivax in the mosquito vector.