 Erica Lee
Research Associate in Department of Microbiology and Immunology
NUS |
Title:
Experimental reverse zoonosis of Plasmodium falciparum in mouse erythrocytes reveals key cellular pathways for anti-malarial drug discovery
Abstract:
Malaria is a life-threatening disease that continues to pose a major global health challenge, impacting millions of individuals each year and is caused by parasites of the Plasmodium species. Of the five known human-infecting species, Plasmodium falciparum remains the most extensively studied due to its high prevalence and association with severe clinical outcomes. . P. falciparum is able to invade mouse red blood cells (mRBCs) but fails to complete its maturation cycle within this non-native erythrocytic environment. We aimed to gain insights into the species barrier between human and mouse erythrocytes in order to identify crucial cellular pathways for drug discovery by using mRBCs infected with P. falciparum. To achieve this, we conducted microarray hybridisation followed by comprehensive transcriptomic analyses, including both differential gene expression and weighted gene co-expression network analyses. The functions of the key differentially-expressed genes highlight pathways potentially responsible for impaired ring stage development observed in mRBCs, and serves as a stepping stone to develop new drugs against P. falciparum.
Biography:
Erica Lee obtained her B.Sc. in Life Sciences and M.Sc. in Research from the National University of Singapore. Currently, she is a Research Associate in Assistant Professor Benoit Malleret’s Laboratory at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Her research centres on both sexual and asexual blood stages of Plasmodium parasites, with a particular interest in host–parasite interactions in Plasmodium falciparum, rodent malaria species, and zoonotic malaria. Using P. falciparum–infected mouse red blood cells as a model, she applies transcriptomic analyses to uncover species-specific barriers to parasite maturation, identifying pathways that may inform the development of novel antimalarial therapies.
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