2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Establishment of RNAi system in Plasmodium falciparum
Project/Area Number |
19K22535
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Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
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Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
Review Section |
Medium-sized Section 49:Pathology, infection/immunology, and related fields
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Research Institution | Ehime University |
Principal Investigator |
Tsuboi Takafumi 愛媛大学, プロテオサイエンスセンター, 教授 (00188616)
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Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
高島 英造 愛媛大学, プロテオサイエンスセンター, 准教授 (50366762)
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Project Period (FY) |
2019-06-28 – 2021-03-31
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Keywords | マラリア原虫 / RNAi |
Outline of Final Research Achievements |
In most eukaryotes, tools for gene knockdown is available in the form of RNA interference (RNAi). However, malaria parasites lack the endogenous RNAi machinery (RISC). The lack hampers gene annotation and hence antimalarial drug and vaccine development. In this extremely challenging study, we tried to introduce the RNAi machinery of human origin into the malaria parasite and thus created RNAi-competent malaria parasite that permit inhibition of gene expression on the mRNA level. During this project, a group of oversea scientists published a success of generating transgenic rodent malaria parasite which expressing a human RNAi machinery. However, It is well-known that the technology for transgenesis in human malaria parasite which we are targeting is quite different from the one for rodent malaria parasite and is more difficult to achieve. Therefore, we are still conducting our best efforts on this technology establishment.
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Free Research Field |
寄生虫学
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Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
マラリア原虫は複雑なライフサイクルを持ち、多くのユニークな遺伝子配列を持つ。これらの遺伝子がコードする原虫特異的なタンパク質の機能解析は、新規な治療薬やマラリアワクチンの開発等に重要であるがほとんど進んでいない。その理由としては、赤血球期マラリア原虫のRNAiによる遺伝子ノックダウン技術が機能しないことが大きな理由である。本研究によってRNAi を行うことができるマラリア原虫株を樹立することができれば、マラリア原虫の生活環を維持するのに重要な遺伝子を探索することが容易となるため、創薬やワクチンの標的となるマラリア原虫タンパク質の発見を加速できる。
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