Development of Plasmodium falciparum liver-stages in hepatocytes derived from human fetal liver organoid cultures.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37532704.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-40298-7 and PMC identifier 10397232.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) parasite development in liver represents the initial step of the life-cycle in the human host after a Pf-infected mosquito bite. While an attractive stage for life-cycle interruption, understanding of parasite-hepatocyte interaction is inadequate due to limitations of existing in vitro models. We explore the suitability of hepatocyte organoids (HepOrgs) for Pf-development and show that these cells permitted parasite invasion, differentiation and maturation of different Pf strains. Single-cell messenger RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of Pf-infected HepOrg cells has identified 80 Pf-transcripts upregulated on day 5 post-infection. Transcriptional profile changes are found involving distinct metabolic pathways in hepatocytes with Scavenger Receptor B1 (SR-B1) transcripts highly upregulated. A novel functional involvement in schizont maturation is confirmed in fresh primary hepatocytes. Thus, HepOrgs provide a strong foundation for a versatile in vitro model for Pf liver-stages accommodating basic biological studies and accelerated clinical development of novel tools for malaria control.
Medical subject headings
- Malaria
- Malaria, Falciparum