Genome sequencing analysis of the Plasmodium falciparum MSH2-1 mutant

MutS homolog 2 (MSH2) is one of the major players in DNA mismatch repair system. Plasmodium is the only eukaryotic taxon which has two MSH2 paralogues (referred to as MSH2-1 and MSH2-2). We established the MSH2-1 mutant in P. falciparum, which has proline-to-threonine change at the position of 513. To elucidate the impact of the mutation on genome stability, we performed long-term serial in vitro culture passage of the mutant and wild-type parasites. Subsequently, spontaneously accumulated mutations were analyzed with high-throughput sequencing.