Transcriptomic Analysis of Chloroquine-Sensitive and Chloroquine-Resistant Strains of Plasmodium falciparum: Toward Malaria Diagnostics and Therapeutics for Global Health

Increasing drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum is an important global health burden because it reverses the malarial control achieved so far. Hence, understanding the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance is the epicenter of the development agenda for novel diagnostic and therapeutic (drugs/vaccines) targets for malaria. In this study, we report global comparative transcriptome profiling (RNA-Seq) to characterize the difference in the transcriptome between 48-h intraerythrocytic stage of chloroquine-sensitive and chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum (3D7 and Dd2) strains. The two P. falciparum 3D7 and Dd2 strains have distant geographical origin, the Netherlands and Indochina, respectively. The strains were cultured by an in vitro method and harvested at the 48-h intraerythrocytic stage having 5% parasitemia. The whole transcriptome sequencing was performed using Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform with paired-end reads. The reads were aligned with the reference P. falciparum genome. The alignment percentages for 3D7, Dd2, and Dd2 w/CQ strains were 85.40%, 89.13%, and 84%, respectively. Nearly 40% of the transcripts had known gene function, whereas the remaining genes (about 60%) had unknown function. The genes involved in immune evasion showed a significant difference between the strains. The differential gene expression between the sensitive and resistant strains was measured using the cuffdiff program with the p-value cutoff <= 0.05. Collectively, this study identified differentially expressed genes between 3D7 and Dd2 strains, where we found 89 genes to be upregulated and 227 to be downregulated. On the contrary, for 3D7 and Dd2 w/CQ strains, 45 genes were upregulated and 409 were downregulated. These differentially regulated genes code, by and large, for surface antigens involved in invasion, pathogenesis, and host-parasite interactions, among others. The exhibition of transcriptional differences between these strains of P. falciparum contributes to our understanding of the attendant, drug-sensitivity phenotypes, and by extension, the current efforts in maintaining global health by developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics for malaria.