A spatio-temporally resolved single cell atlas of the Plasmodium liver stage

To study the liver stage of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei, we molecularly characterized thousands of infected and uninfected hepatocytes in different time points and inferred their spatial coordinates. Thus enabling us to characterize the host’s and parasite’s temporal expression programs in a zonally-controlled manner. Mice infected with GFP expressing Plasmodium berghaei ANKA (clone 259cl2), either via injection or mosquito-bite, were sacraficed at different time points; FACS sorted infected and uninfected hepatocytes; mRNA profiles from single cells, sequenced in an Illumina NextSeq/NovaSeq.