Application of linkage mapping to malaria parasite biology

Overview

We have been working closely with Ashley VaughanMike Ferdig and Cheeseman laboratories to utilize humanized mice for conducting genetic crosses in P. falciparum, and we can now generate crosses with large numbers of progeny providing excellent statistic power to localize genes underlying important phenotypic traits. In particular, we have focused on developing methods for efficient bulk segregant approaches to analyzing genetic crosses that do not require laborious cloning and phenotyping of individual progeny and we have applied these methods to identifying genome regions underlying parasite fitness or those underlying nutrient acquisition/metablolism. We have also successfully applied bulk segregant approaches in parallel work on schistosome genetic crosses.

Publications