Malaria drives unique regulatory responses across multiple immune cells during human infection

To investigate malaria driven transcriptional changes in specific immune cell subsets, we sorted live PBMCs from 6 malaria infected donors (day 0), and two subsequent time points after drug treatment (day 7 and 28), along with PBMCs from 2 healthy controls. We performed scRNAseq of these cells, and used clustering and sub-clustering to identify specific immune cell subsets. Differential gene analysis between day 0 and day 28 was performed for each cell cluster and sub-cluster. Key transcriptional changes were confirmed at the protein level with additional donor samples. Overall design: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 6 individuals (age 6-24) with P. falciparum infection and 2 healthy adult endemic controls (ages 20 and 27) were collected before drug treatment (day 0) and at 7 and 28 days after treatment. PBMCs were isolated by Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) according to the presence or absence of XX signal, and analysed using droplet-based scRNAseq.”