Fig. 2: Analysis of P. falciparum metabolic states and host genes essential for parasite growth.

a Case study I – auxotrophic P. falciparum with access to the entire hepatocyte’s cytosol metabolome. Case study II – partial prototrophic P. falciparum uptaking a minimal set of nutrients from the hepatocyte’s cytosol. b Metabolic composition of the alternative parasitosomes in case study I (auxotrophic parasite) and II (partial prototrophic parasite). Parasitosomes are representations of the nutrients taken up from and products secreted to the hepatocyte by parasites in different metabolic states. c Assignment to metabolic subsystems of the reactions that compose the minimal networks for the different parasitosomes, when considering auxotrophic (green) or partial prototrophic (orange) metabolic configurations of P. falciparum, in terms of number of reactions and percentage of subsystem coverage for selected pathways. d Scheme of gene essentiality analysis performed in the integrated host-parasite model. e, f Hepatocyte genes essential for P. falciparum in case study I (auxotrophic state, green) and in case study II (partial prototrophic state, orange) for selected pathways. Classification by associated metabolic processes, number of genes, and frequency of essentiality across parasitosomes.