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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Clinical Microbiology
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2024.1474229

The RNA m 5 C methyltransferase NSUN1 modulates human malaria gene expression during intraerythrocytic development

Provisionally accepted
Ruoyu Tang Ruoyu Tang 1,2Yanting Fan Yanting Fan 2,3Binbin Lu Binbin Lu 2Qunfeng Jiang Qunfeng Jiang 4Xinyu Cheng Xinyu Cheng 1Zuping Zhang Zuping Zhang 1Xiaomin Shang Xiaomin Shang 1*
  • 1 Central South University, Changsha, China
  • 2 Tongji University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
  • 3 Northwest University, Xi'an, China
  • 4 Hunan Xingchen Biotechnology Company, Yongzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Plasmodium falciparum is the most damaging malaria pathogen and poses a heavy global health burden. Host switching and morphological changes in P. falciparum are dependent on an effective gene expression regulatory system. C5 methylation of cytosines is a common RNA modification in eukaryotes, and the NSUN family serving as essential m5C modification executors. Currently, little is known about this family in Plasmodium spp. In this study, we focus on exploring the function of the PfNSUN1 protein. An efficient CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technique was applied to construct the PfNSUN1 knockdown strain, achieving approximately 34% down-regulation of the PfNSUN1 protein. RNA-seq data revealed that differentially expressed genes were mainly down-regulated, with 224, 278, 556 genes showing more than 2-fold change and p-adj<0.05 at ring, trophozoite and schizont stages, respectively. The PfNSUN1 protein was significantly enriched on 154 target genes, including 28S ribosomal RNA and pfap2-g5 transcription factor. The results indicate that PfNSUN1 is a crucial RNA post-transcriptional modification protein in P. falciparum. It plays a pivotal role in regulating gene expression and parasite growth by targeting 28S ribosomal RNA and PfAP2-G5 transcription factor.

    Keywords: Plasmodium falciparum, 5-Methylcytosine, RNA modification, regulation, 28S ribosomal RNA

    Received: 01 Aug 2024; Accepted: 29 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Tang, Fan, Lu, Jiang, Cheng, Zhang and Shang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xiaomin Shang, Central South University, Changsha, China

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