Development of an Editable Approach to the Study Parasite-Erythroid Interactions

Abstract

Malaria remains responsible for an enormous health burden worldwide; considerable research effort is being devoted to finding ways to combat the disease and its transmission. Malaria is caused by Plasmodium species, and P. falciparum causes the most serious disease. The blood stage of the P. falciparum remains critically important to understand for development of treatments and vaccines. To initiate invasion, the P. falciparum merozoite recognises specific proteins on the host red cell membrane, known as invasion receptors. In order to study parasite–host interactions, laboratory adapted P. falciparum strains that invade mature human red cells have been used. Gene modification methods..