Exploring the virulence gene interactome with CRISPR/dCas9 in the human malaria parasite

The var multigene family encodes clonally variant surface antigens that are key to immune evasion and pathogenesis in the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Epigenetics and nuclear organization regulate the var gene family in a system of mutually exclusive expression; however, few factors have been shown to play a direct role in these processes. Thus, we adapted a CRISPR-based immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry approach for identification of novel factors associated with var genes in their natural chromatin context. A tagged, catalytically inactive Cas9 (“dCas9”) was targeted to the promoters or introns of a subset of var genes and subjected to immunoprecipitation followed by label-free LC-MS/MS. A non-targeted dCas9 served as a control.