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Parasitology

Silent variations

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 3, page 451 (2005)Cite this article

Different forms of PfEMP1 are encoded by the var gene family, which has at least 60 members found on all 14 chromosomes. Most var genes are subtelomeric, and antigenic variation, which the host finds so difficult to combat, involves switching to transcribe a different var gene.

It is already known that, in yeast, condensation of chromatin into heterochromatin silences gene transcription, and that the ScSir2 protein marks chromatin regions for compaction. Although the P. falciparum genome contains a gene encoding a ScSir2 homologue (PfSir2), its role in gene expression has not been addressed. Two teams led by Alan Cowman, Brendan Crabb and Artur Scherf now report on the mechanisms that switch subtelomeric genes on and off.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Duraisingh, M. T. et al. Heterochromatin silencing and locus repositioning linked to regulation of virulence genes in Plasmodium falciparum. Cell 121, 13–24 (2005)

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  2. Freitas-Junior, L. et al. Telomeric heterochromatin propagation and histone acetylation control mutually exclusive expression of antigenic variation genes in malaria parasites. Cell 121, 25–36 (2005)

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Authors
  1. Susan Jones
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Jones, S. Silent variations. Nat Rev Microbiol 3, 451 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1176

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