CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing of Plasmodium knowlesi
Franziska Mohring, Melissa Hart, Avnish Patel, David Baker, Robert Moon
Abstract
Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonotic malaria parasite in Southeast Asia that can cause severe and fatal malaria in humans. The main hosts are Macaques, but modern diagnostic tools reveal increasing numbers of human infections. After P. falciparum, P. knowlesi is the only other malaria parasite capable of being maintained in long term in vitro culture with human red blood cells (RBCs). Its closer ancestry to other non-falciparum human malaria parasites, more balanced AT-content, larger merozoites and higher transfection efficiencies, gives P. knowlesi some key advantages over P.
Topics & Concepts
MalariaPlasmodium knowlesiBiologyParasite hostingGenome editingVirologyTransfectionGenomeCRISPRPlasmodium (life cycle)Computational biologyPlasmodium falciparumGeneticsGenomicsSoutheast asiaHuman genomeMalaria Research and ControlCRISPR and Genetic EngineeringGenetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research