疟原虫表观遗传学研究进展

Advanced in epigenetic researches of Plasmodium

疟原虫的生活史包括配子体、裂殖子、环状体等多个阶段,先后寄生在多种类型的宿主细胞才完成完整的生命周期。在这些生活史中的不同虫期,疟原虫表现出明显的表型差异;在应对生存环境的改变时,其基因表达能够很精确地做出应对。近年来诸多研究表明,无论是这些生命阶段的转换,还是对宿主的适应,疟原虫表观遗传学方面的调控都起了很大的作用。对疟原虫表观遗传学的研究,有利于深入了解疟原虫与宿主的相互作用机制,对防治疟疾工作具有重要意义。本文从组蛋白修饰、DNA甲基化、非编码RNA编辑等方面介绍目前疟原虫表观遗传学研究进展。

The life cycle of Plasmodium has a lot of stages including gametocytes, schizont, trophozoite. It should be parasitic in a variety of types of host cells can complete a life cycle. In different life stages, Plasmodium shows significant phenotypic differences, and when faces the changes in the living environment, its gene expression can be very accurate to respond. In recent years, many studies have shown that no matter the conversion of these life stages, or to adapt to the host environment, its epigenetic regulation has played an important role. The study of epigenetics in Plasmodium opens a new area of investigation to further understand the interaction mechanism of parasite and host, and is of great significance on the prevention and treatment of malaria. We reviewed the current progress in the research of Plasmodium epigenetics from histone modification, DNA/methylation and non coding RNA editing.