STEM CELL TECHNOLOGY PROVIDES NOVEL TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND HUMAN VARIATION IN Plasmodium falciparum MALARIA
Plasmodium falciparum interacts with several human cell types during their complex life cycle, including erythrocytes and hepatocytes. The enuclated nature of erythrocytes makes them inaccessible to genetic tools, which in turn makes studying erythrocyte proteins involved in malaria invasion and development particularly difficult. Here we overcome this limitation using stem cell technology to develop a universal differentiation protocol for in vitro derivation of erythrocytes from a variety of stem cell lines of diverse origin. This allows manipulation of erythrocytic genes and examination of their impact on the parasite by flow cytometric detection of parasite haemozoin. Deletion of Basigin, the essential receptor for P. falciparum, abrogates invasion, while other less studied proteins such as ATP2B4 have a minor effect. Reprogramming of induced pluripotent stem cells from -thalassemia primary samples shows reduced infection levels, demonstrating this approach is useful for understanding the effect of natural human polymorphisms on the disease.