{"doi":"10.3389/fmicb.2020.631444","title":"PfAP2-G2 Is Associated to Production and Maturation of Gametocytes in Plasmodium falciparum via Regulating the Expression of PfMDV-1","abstract":"Gametocyte is the sole form of the Plasmodium falciparum which is transmissible to the mosquito vector. Here, we report that an Apicomplexan Apetala2 (ApiAP2) family transcription factor, PfAP2-G2 (Pf3D7_1408200), plays a role in the development of gametocytes in P. falciparum by regulating the expression of PfMDV-1 (Pf3D7_1216500) . Reverse transcriptase-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis showed that PfAP2-G2 was highly expressed in the ring stage. Indirect immunofluorescence assay showed nuclear localization of PfAP2-G2 in asexual stages. The knockout of PfAP2-G2 led to a ~95% decrease in the number of mature gametocytes with a more substantial influence on the production and maturation of the male gametocytes, resulting in a higher female/male gametocyte ratio. To test the mechanism of this phenotype, RNA-seq and RT-qPCR showed that disruption of PfAP2-G2 led to the down-regulation of male development gene-1 ( PfMDV-1 ) in asexual stages. We further found that PfAP2-G2 was enriched at the transcriptional start site (TSS) of PfMDV-1 by chromatin immunoprecipitation and qPCR assay in both ring stage and schizont stage, which demonstrated that PfMDV-1 is one of the targets of PfAP2-G2. In addition, RT-qPCR also showed that PfAP2-G (Pf3D7_1222600), the master regulator for sexual commitment, was also down-regulated in the PfAP2-G2 knockout parasites in the schizont stage, but no change in the ring stage. This phenomenon suggested that PfAP2-G2 played a role at the asexual stage for the development of parasite gametocytes and warrants further investigations in regulatory pathways of PfAP2-G2.","journal":"Frontiers in Microbiology","year":2021,"id":177045,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9662,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":720572,"name":"Dan Qiao","orcid":"0000-0003-2375-1512","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720573,"name":"Yuhao Wen","orcid":"0000-0001-8510-1131","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720574,"name":"Yifei Bi","orcid":"0000-0001-7254-5403","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720575,"name":"Yuxi Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-7826-4212","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720576,"name":"Zhenghui Huang","orcid":"0000-0002-5906-6966","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":308914,"name":"Liwang Cui","orcid":"0000-0002-8338-1974","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334153,"name":"Jian Guo","orcid":"0000-0001-5635-8851","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334156,"name":"Yaming Cao","orcid":"0000-0001-5315-1636","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":721302,"name":"Yaozheng Xu","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:28.018172Z","pmid":"33537025","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}