Extended Data Fig. 9: Myb-M is the earliest male transcription factor and the locus is refractory to disruption.

a, UMAPs show the normalized expression levels (in blue) of male- and female-specific transcription factors. Myb-M is expressed the earliest of all factors with female AP2s expressed particularly late in female developmental progression. b, c, Myb-M was targeted for deletion at the predicted N-terminal DNA binding domains (b) or after for C-terminal truncation (832 base pairs into the coding sequence, c) by CRISPR/Cas9 mediated marker insertions. Myb-M-HA was used as a control in parallel. Sporozoites transfected with a Cas9+gRNA plasmid and homology repair template (see Extended Data Fig. 1 for design) were given to mice via oral gavage. Oocyst shedding was monitored by faecal luminescence measurements. Data is represented as the mean of three technical replicates. Note that while epitope tagged mutants are readily recovered, no viable transgenics were isolated using the deletion and truncation constructs, suggesting that the gene is likely essential.