Transgenic Plasmodium falciparum parasites line 3D7/DDGFP-PfAP2-HC: transcriptional differences between 3D7/DDGFP-PfAP2-HC control parasites (cultured in presence of Shield-1; ON) vs PfAP2-HC-depleted parasites (cultured in absence of Shield-1; OFF)

Transcriptional profiling of transgenic P. falciparum asexual blood stage parasites of the transgenic strain 3D7/DDGFP-PfAP2-HC at five time points during intra-erythrocytic parasite development. The DD (FKBP destabilisation domain) allows for the conditional expression of fusion proteins: DD fusion proteins are rapidly degraded or stably expressed in absence or presence of the stabilising ligand Shield-1, respectively (Banaszynski LA, Chen LC, Maynard-Smith LA, Ooi AG, Wandless TJ. A rapid, reversible, and tunable method to regulate protein function in living cells using synthetic small molecules.Cell. 2006 Sep 8;126(5):995-1004). The goal of this experiment was to identify genes differentially expressed in DDGFP-PfAP2-HC-expressing compared to DDGFP-PfAP2-HC-depleted parasites during the intra-erythtrocytic cell cycle. P. falciparum 3D7/DDGFP-PfAP2-HC transgenic parasites expressing a GFP-DD-tagged version of the ApiAP2 factor PfAP2-HC (PF3D7_1456000) were grown in the presence of 675nM Shield-1 (DDGFP-PfAP2-HC “ON”) or in the absence of Shield-1 (DDGFP-PfAP2-HC “OFF”). RNA extracted from these samples at five consecutive time points during the intra-erythrocytic cell cycle was processed for microarray analysis.