Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and this is dependent on the ability of parasites to invade and exit from mosquito and human cells. This project aims to understand the role of malaria parasite protein glycosylation in parasite infection. Malaria parasites express proteins on their surface that enable movement, invasion and egress and we have shown that glycosylation is a crucial event for transmission (Lopaticki et al., Nature Communications 2017 and Nature Communications 2022). The project will involve cell culture, molecular biology, CRISPR/Cas9 genetics to tag and knockout Plasmodium falciparum genes, fluorescence microscopy and proteomics to understand how glycosylation of different P. falciparum proteins affects transmission. These results will have important implications for the design of vaccines that block transmission and pre-erythrocytic liver infection.
