Using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, the research group of Professor Yuan Jing from the School of Life Sciences of Xiamen University has efficiently achieved different types of modifications of multiple genes in the Plasmodium genome, including gene deletion, gene tagging and allele replacement.
Malaria, an infectious disease caused by infection with the Plasmodium parasite, remains a serious public health burden worldwide. Although the malaria parasite genome has been sequenced, the functions of most of the genes in the genome are unknown. The original Plasmodium genome editing and modification methods are extremely inefficient, which greatly limits the revealing of Plasmodium gene functions.
In this study, the research group of Professor Yuan Jing from the School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, based on a novel genome modification method CRISPR/Cas9 system, introduced site-specific DNA double-strand breaks into the genome of Plasmodium yoelii. Source recombination repair efficiently achieves different types of modifications of multiple genes in the malaria parasite genome, including gene deletion, gene tagging, and allelic replacement. The development of this system has improved researchers' ability to modify the genome of the parasite, thereby facilitating the study of the parasite's biology.