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Revisiting the initial steps of sexual development in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum

Nature Microbiology volume 4, pages 144–154 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Human to vector transmission of malaria requires that some blood-stage parasites abandon asexual growth and convert into non-replicating sexual forms called gametocytes. The initial steps of gametocytogenesis remain largely uncharacterized. Here, we study this part of the malaria life cycle in Plasmodium falciparum using PfAP2-G, the master regulator of sexual conversion, as a marker of commitment. We demonstrate the existence of PfAP2-G-positive sexually committed parasite stages that precede the previously known committed schizont stage. We also found that sexual conversion can occur by two different routes: the previously described route in which PfAP2-G-expressing parasites complete a replicative cycle as committed forms before converting into gametocytes upon re-invasion, or a direct route with conversion within the same cycle as initial PfAP2-G expression. The latter route is linked to early PfAP2-G expression in ring stages. Reanalysis of published single-cell RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data confirmed the presence of both routes. Consistent with these results, using plaque assays we observed that, in contrast to the prevailing model, many schizonts produced mixed plaques containing both asexual parasites and gametocytes. Altogether, our results reveal unexpected features of the initial steps of sexual development and extend the current view of this part of the malaria life cycle.

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Fig. 1: Gametocytes can form at the same cycle of PfAP2-G activation.
Fig. 2: Plaque assays reveal that some individual schizonts generate mixed sexual and asexual plaques.
Fig. 3: Single-cell RNA-seq identification and characterization of SCC gametocytes.
Fig. 4: Temporal dynamics of pfap2-g transcript levels.
Fig. 5: PfAP2-G expression dynamics.

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Data availability

The single-cell RNA-sequencing data analysed in this study have been deposited at the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) under study accession code SRP116718. The authors declare that all other relevant data generated or analysed during this study are included in the Article or its Supplementary Information. Materials and protocols are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank P. Alano (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) for the F12 line, M. J. Delves (Imperial College London) for the 3D7 line from Imperial College London (3D7-Imp.), R. Carter (University of Edinburgh) for the anti-Pfg27 monoclonal antibody, R. W. Sauerwein (Radboud University) for the anti-Pfs16 monoclonal antibody, M. Lee (Wellcome Sanger Institute) for plasmid pDC2-Cas9-U6-hdhfr, J.-J. López-Rubio (University of Montpellier) for plasmid pL6-eGFP-yFCU, M. Llinás (Pennsylvannia State University) for providing the E5-HA-DD line and a plasmid containing the eyfp gene followed by a P. falciparum terminator and S. Osborne (LifeArc) and D. Baker (LSHTM) for providing the compound ML10 and advice on its use. The authors also thank J. Romero Ortolà and C. Sànchez Guirado for assistance with the generation of plasmids and S. Pagans (Universitat de Girona) for critical reading of the manuscript. The authors acknowledge the Flow Cytometry core facility of the IDIBAPS for technical help. This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO)/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) (SAF2013-43601-R and SAF2016-76190-R to A.C.), co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF, European Union), and the Secretary for Universities and Research under the Department of Economy and Knowledge of the Catalan Government (2014 SGR 485 to A.C.). C.B. was supported by postdoctoral fellowship 2011-BP-B 00060 from the Secretary for Universities and Research. O.L.-B. is supported by an FPU fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU014/02456). ISGlobal is a member of the CERCA Programme, Generalitat de Catalunya. Single-cell experiments were supported by WCM internal startup funds (B.F.C.K.) and NSF CAREER award (DBI-10549646 to O.E.), LLS SCOR (7006-13 and 7012016 to O.E.), Hirschl Trust Award (O.E.), Starr Cancer Consortium (I6-A618 to O.E.) and NIH (1R01CA194547 to O.E.). A.P. and C.N. were supported by WCM graduate fellowships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ISGlobal, Hospital Clínic - Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Cristina Bancells, Oriol Llorà-Batlle, Núria Rovira-Graells & Alfred Cortés

  2. Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Asaf Poran & Olivier Elemento

  3. Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Asaf Poran & Olivier Elemento

  4. Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Graduate Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Asaf Poran

  5. Biochemistry, Cell & Molecular Biology Graduate Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Christopher Nötzel

  6. Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Christopher Nötzel & Björn F. C. Kafsack

  7. ICREA, Barcelona, Spain

    Alfred Cortés

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  1. Cristina Bancells
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Contributions

C.B. and A.C. conceived the project. C.B., O.L.-B. and A.C. designed and interpreted the experiments. C.B., O.L.-B., N.R.-G. and A.C. performed the experiments. A.P. and B.F.C.K. analysed single-cell RNA-seq data. A.P., C.N., O.E. and B.F.C.K. contributed resources or data. C.B. and A.C. wrote the article, with major input from O.L.-B. and B.F.C.K.

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Correspondence to Alfred Cortés.

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Bancells, C., Llorà-Batlle, O., Poran, A. et al. Revisiting the initial steps of sexual development in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Nat Microbiol 4, 144–154 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0291-7

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