Research

Antioxidant defense in Plasmodium falciparum – data mining of the transcriptome

Zbynek Bozdech¹ and Hagai Ginsburg²

¹Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, 600 16^th Str, San Francisco, CA 94143-0448, USA

²Department of Biological Chemistry, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

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Malaria Journal 2004, 3:23doi:10.1186/1475-2875-3-23

Published:	9 July 2004

Abstract

The intraerythrocytic malaria parasite is under constant oxidative stress originating both from endogenous and exogenous processes. The parasite is endowed with a complete network of enzymes and proteins that protect it from those threats, but also uses redox activities to regulate enzyme activities. In the present analysis, the transcription of the genes coding for the antioxidant defense elements are viewed in the time-frame of the intraerythrocytic cycle. Time-dependent transcription data were taken from the transcriptome of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Whereas for several processes the transcription of the many participating genes is coordinated, in the present case there are some outstanding deviations where gene products that utilize glutathione or thioredoxin are transcribed before the genes coding for elements that control the levels of those substrates are transcribed. Such insights may hint to novel, non-classical pathways that necessitate further investigations.