Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-9-2020

Keywords

JGM

JAX Source

Stem Cell Reports 2020 Jun 9; 14(6):1123-1134

Volume

14

Issue

6

First Page

1123

Last Page

1134

ISSN

2213-6711

PMID

32442532

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2020.04.010

Abstract

Asymptomatic and obligatory liver stage (LS) infection of Plasmodium parasites presents an attractive target for antimalarial vaccine and drug development. Lack of robust cellular models to study LS infection has hindered the discovery and validation of host genes essential for intrahepatic parasite development. Here, we present a chemically differentiated mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC)-based LS model, which supports complete development of Plasmodium berghei exoerythrocytic forms (EEFs) and can be used to define new host-parasite interactions. Using our model, we established that host Pnpla2, coding for adipose triglyceride lipase, is dispensable for P. berghei EEF development. In addition, we also evaluated in-vitro-differentiated human hepatocyte-like cells (iHLCs) to study LS of P. berghei and found it to be a sub-optimal infection model. Overall, our results present a new mouse ESC-based P. berghei LS infection model that can be utilized to study the impact of host genetic variation on parasite development.

Comments

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License

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