{"doi":"10.7554/elife.54129","title":"A single-parasite transcriptional atlas of Toxoplasma Gondii reveals novel control of antigen expression","abstract":"Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan parasite, undergoes a complex and poorly understood developmental process that is critical for establishing a chronic infection in its intermediate hosts. Here, we applied single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) on >5,400 Toxoplasma in both tachyzoite and bradyzoite stages using three widely studied strains to construct a comprehensive atlas of cell-cycle and asexual development, revealing hidden states and transcriptional factors associated with each developmental stage. Analysis of SAG1-related sequence (SRS) antigenic repertoire reveals a highly heterogeneous, sporadic expression pattern unexplained by measurement noise, cell cycle, or asexual development. Furthermore, we identified AP2IX-1 as a transcription factor that controls the switching from the ubiquitous SAG1 to rare surface antigens not previously observed in tachyzoites. In addition, comparative analysis between Toxoplasma and Plasmodium scRNA-seq results reveals concerted expression of gene sets, despite fundamental differences in cell division. Lastly, we built an interactive data-browser for visualization of our atlas resource.","journal":"eLife","year":2020,"id":57731,"datarank":2.2781536058069767,"base_score":4.343805421853684,"endowment":4.343805421853684,"self_citation_contribution":0.6515708132780527,"citation_network_contribution":1.626582792528924,"self_endowment_contribution":0.6515708132780527,"citer_contribution":1.626582792528924,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":76,"citer_count":70,"citers_with_citation_signal":53,"citers_with_endowment":53,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.5356,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"GEO":["GSE145080","GSE19092","GSE108740"],"Dryad":["10.5061/dryad.kprr4xh17"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":296485,"name":"Terence C. Theisen","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301869,"name":"Suchita Rastogi","orcid":"0000-0001-7808-1777","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":303329,"name":"Abel Ferrel","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11049,"name":"Stephen R. Quake","orcid":"0000-0002-1613-0809","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294200,"name":"John C. Boothroyd","orcid":"0000-0001-9719-745X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301868,"name":"Yuan Xue","orcid":"0000-0002-7846-4273","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":73,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:06:48.611399Z","pmid":"32065584","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":[]}