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A Novel Chemically Differentiated Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell-Based Model to Study Liver Stages of Plasmodium berghei.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Tripathi, Jaishree 
Segeritz, Charis-Patricia 
Griffiths, Gareth 
Bushell, Wendy 

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.

Description

Keywords

Pnpla2, embryonic stem cells, hepatocyte-like cells, malaria, methoxybenzamide differentiation, Animals, Cell Differentiation, Cell Line, Cells, Cultured, Hepatocytes, Host-Parasite Interactions, Humans, Lipase, Malaria, Mice, Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells, Plasmodium berghei

Journal Title

Stem Cell Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2213-6711
2213-6711

Volume Title

14

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_12009)
Medical Research Council (G0701448)
National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC/N001540/1)
European Research Council (741707)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (TS/H001220/1)
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_17230)