Genome-wide in silico analysis for novel regulators of gametocyte development critical for transmission of Plasmodium falciparum

Malaria, caused by the unicellular Apicomplexan protozoa of the genus Plasmodium, is an infectious disease transmitted via female Anopheles mosquitoes. The sexual stage (gametocytes) of malaria parasites is the key to the transmission of parasites from vertebrate hosts to mosquitoes, representing critical bottleneck of the parasite life cycle. This study has established a systematic computational pipeline to achieve the genome-wide in silico analysis and find 708 novels potentially indispensable genes for gametocyte development, consisting of 644 protein coding genes, 56 ncRNA genes and 8 pseudogenes, with a total of 191 genes in the transmembrane, 29 protein coding genes to be exported proteins, and 58 genes in apicoplast regions. Furthermore, Gene Ontology analysis showed that the largest cluster was cellular processes with nucleus and cytosol highest, followed by molecular function with binding and oxidoreductase activities abundant. Meanwhile, when a text searched, using PlasmoDB, there were 300 genes with annotations of "putative", and 196 genes with annotations of "unknown function". These data would be helpful to provide potential targets for effective malaria transmission-blocking strategies.