Transcriptional Analysis of Tightly Synchronized Plasmodium falciparum Intraerythrocytic Stages by RT-qPCR

Abstract

In Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the most severe forms of human malaria, many fundamental processes are controlled at the transcriptional level. Studies on diverse aspects of basic parasite biology as well as molecular epidemiology studies often rely on the ability to accurately measure transcript levels, but this is complicated by the cyclic expression patterns of the majority of malaria parasite genes. Here, we provide a complete workflow to measure transcript levels in P. falciparum intraerythrocytic blood stages, overcoming the confounding factors that are commonly encountered. The method described covers all the steps from synchronization of parasite cultures to reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis.

Keywords: Gene expression; Malaria; Plasmodium falciparum; RNA extraction; Reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR); Tight synchronization; Transcriptional analysis.