Lia Chappell

A family of apicomplexa-specific proteins containing AP2 DNA-binding domains (ApiAP2s) was identified in malaria parasites. This family includes sequence-specific transcription factors that are key regulators of development. However, functions for the majority of ApiAP2 genes remain unknown. Here, a systematic knockout screen in Plasmodium berghei identified ten ApiAP2 genes that were essential for mosquito transmission: four were critical for the formation of infectious ookinetes, and three were required for sporogony. We describe non-essential functions for AP2-O and AP2-SP proteins in blood stages, and identify AP2-G2 as a repressor active in both asexual and sexual stages. Comparative transcriptomics across mutants and developmental stages revealed clusters of co-regulated genes with shared cis promoter elements, whose expression can be controlled positively or negatively by different ApiAP2 factors. We propose that stage-specific interactions between ApiAP2 proteins on partly overlapping sets of target genes generate the complex transcriptional network that controls the Plasmodium life cycle.

Many critical events in the Plasmodium life cycle rely on the controlled release of Ca²⁺ from intracellular stores to activate stage-specific Ca²⁺-dependent protein kinases. Using the motility of Plasmodium berghei ookinetes as a signalling paradigm, we show that the cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase, PKG, maintains the elevated level of cytosolic Ca²⁺ required for gliding motility. We find that the same PKG-dependent pathway operates upstream of the Ca²⁺ signals that mediate activation of P. berghei gametocytes in the mosquito and egress of Plasmodium falciparum merozoites from infected human erythrocytes. Perturbations of PKG signalling in gliding ookinetes have a marked impact on the phosphoproteome, with a significant enrichment of in vivo regulated sites in multiple pathways including vesicular trafficking and phosphoinositide metabolism. A global analysis of cellular phospholipids demonstrates that in gliding ookinetes PKG controls phosphoinositide biosynthesis, possibly through the subcellular localisation or activity of lipid kinases. Similarly, phosphoinositide metabolism links PKG to egress of P. falciparum merozoites, where inhibition of PKG blocks hydrolysis of phosphatidylinostitol (4,5)-bisphosphate. In the face of an increasing complexity of signalling through multiple Ca²⁺ effectors, PKG emerges as a unifying factor to control multiple cellular Ca²⁺ signals essential for malaria parasite development and transmission.

Single-cell multiomics technologies typically measure multiple types of molecule from the same individual cell, enabling more profound biological insight than can be inferred by analyzing each molecular layer from separate cells. These single-cell multiomics technologies can reveal cellular heterogeneity at multiple molecular layers within a population of cells and reveal how this variation is coupled or uncoupled between the captured omic layers. The data sets generated by these techniques have the potential to enable a deeper understanding of the key biological processes and mechanisms driving cellular heterogeneity and how they are linked with normal development and aging as well as disease etiology. This review details both established and novel single-cell mono- and multiomics technologies and considers their limitations, applications, and likely future developments.