Single Cell Genomics of Malaria Infections | New Voices in Infection Biology

If you are interested in joining the seminar, please contact: vseminars@mpiib-berlin.mpg.de

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Talk abstract:

Malaria infections are rarely genetically homogenous. In regions of intense malaria transmission infections often harbor several genetically distinct malaria parasite lineages. In simple models of malaria transmission these are often assumed to arise from superinfection, where multiple infected mosquitos each deliver a unique genotype to a patient. We use high resolution genome-wide tools to understand how genetic diversity is generated in malaria patients. Single cell sequencing enables us to reconstruct the genome of a single parasitized cell, and to definitively distinguish infections where diversity is driven by superinfection, or by co-infection (where related parasites are inoculated from a single mosquito) or by more complex mixtures of these processes. I will discuss the development of single cell approaches to understand infection diversity, and show how these can be used to understand transmission and relatedness of two major malaria parasite species, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.