Stage-specific transcriptome of the malaria parasite in the red blood cell cycle

The World Health Organization has estimated that in 2015 there were 214 million cases of malaria that led to approximately 438,000 deaths. The development of novel therapeutics largely relies on a better understanding of parasite biology and pathogenesis. Our analyses on time-series RNA-Seq data identified stage-specific genes expressed across the blood-stage in the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum: in the ring and the early trophozoite stage, genes associated with hemoglobin degradation and transcription were highly expressed; in the trophozoite and early schizont stage, genes involved in glycolysis, the TCA cycle, mitochondrion organization, deoxyribonucleotide metabolic processes as well as DNA replication were upregulated; in the schizont stage, genes associated with merozoite invasion and actin filament organization were over-expressed. Our results revealed an orchestrated transcriptional machinery and a “just-in-time” mechanism for transcriptional regulation in the blood stage of the