Transcriptomic expression profiling of mouse PBMCs treated with a Plasmdium berghei protein, PbTIP

Plasmodium immune evasion strategies hugely contribute to the success of parasite in its host and of various immune evasion strategies, parasite often expresses molecular mimics of host molecules to manipulate the host responses. In this study, we report a Plasmodium hypothetical protein which is homologous to its human T cell immunomodulatory protein and possess the potential to suppress the immune responses. This Plasmodium berghei protein, PbTIP, is expressed as a surface protein of merozoites and reduce inflammatory response of macrophages while up-regulating the anti-inflammatory cytokines such as TGF-β and IL-10 in-vitro. The immunosuppressive effect of PbTIP was studies systemically by treating mouse with recombinant PbTIP (10mg/kg) for four consecutive days followed by mouse PBMCs isolation and transcriptome profiling. GST protein treated mouse PBMCs were taken as control here. We performed Next Generation sequencing to compare transcriptome profiles of mouse PBMCs treated with PbTIP as compared to the control.