Fig. 5: TgAP2IX-5 controls the expression of key genes involved in daughter parasite formation.

a Volcano plot of differentially expressed genes analyzed from RNA-sequencing of TgAP2IX-5 parasites treated with auxin for 6 h. Downregulated genes are represented in blue, upregulated genes are represented in red. Statistically nonsignificant genes are represented in gray. The differential expression analysis (DE) was based on three independent biological experiments. b Heatmap showing the cell cycle expression of all individual transcripts that are downregulated in the iKD AP2IX-5 strain in the presence of 6 h of auxin treatment. The cell cycle phases are represented at the bottom as well as the timing when budding occurs. c ChIP-seq data representing the direct targeting of TgAP2IX-5 to the promoters of TgIMC4 (i), TgIMC1 (i), TgGAPM3 (ii), TgIMC29 (iii), and TgAP2XII-2 (iv) genes. MACS2 generated tracks are represented together with the annotated genes (top). d Venn diagram of overlapping downregulated genes, upregulated genes from RNA-seq, and identified promoters of genes directly interacting with TgAP2IX-5. DEseq2 and MACS2 software were used to analyze RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data, respectively. e Heatmap of 89 downregulated genes directly activated by TgAP2IX-5. The cell cycle phases are represented at the bottom.