Publications

Chromosome 2 sequence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum

Gardner MJ, Tettelin H, Carucci DJ, Cummings LM, Aravind L, Koonin EV, Shallom S, Mason T, Yu K, Fujii C, Pederson J, Shen K, Jing J, Aston C, Lai Z, Schwartz DC, Pertea M, Salzberg S, Zhou L, Sutton GG, Clayton R, White O, Smith HO, Fraser CM, Adams MD, Venter JC, Hoffman SL

PMID: 9804551

Abstract

Chromosome 2 of Plasmodium falciparum was sequenced; this sequence contains 947,103 base pairs and encodes 210 predicted genes. In comparison with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome, chromosome 2 has a lower gene density, introns are more frequent, and proteins are markedly enriched in nonglobular domains. A family of surface proteins, rifins, that may play a role in antigenic variation was identified. The complete sequencing of chromosome 2 has shown that sequencing of the A+T-rich P. falciparum genome is technically feasible.