A scalable CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system facilitates CRISPR screens in the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei

Authors:
Thorey K Jonsdottir, Martina S Paoletta,  Takahiro Ishizaki, Sophia Hernandez, Maria Ivanova, Alicia Herrera Curbelo, Paulina A Saiki, Martin Selinger, Debojyoti Das,Johan Henriksson, Ellen S C Bushell
In:
Source: Nucleic Acids Res
Publication Date: (2025)
Issue: 2: 53
Research Area:
Parasitology
Molecular Biology
Cells used in publication:
Plasmodium berghei
Species: unicellular
Tissue Origin:
Platform:
4D-Nucleofector® X-Unit
Experiment

Schizonts were transfected by electroporation using the Lonza 4D-Nucleofector System according to the pulse program FI-115 with the P3 Primary Cell 4D-Nucleofector X Kit S (Lonza). 

Abstract

Many Plasmodium genes remain uncharacterized due to low genetic tractability. Previous large-scale knockout screens have only been able to target about half of the genome in the more genetically tractable rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a scalable CRISPR system called P. berghei high-throughput (PbHiT), which uses a single cloning step to generate targeting vectors with 100-bp homology arms physically linked to a guide RNA (gRNA) that effectively integrate into the target locus. We show that PbHiT coupled with gRNA sequencing robustly recapitulates known knockout mutant phenotypes in pooled transfections. Furthermore, we provide an online resource of knockout and tagging designs to target the entire P. berghei genome and scale-up vector production using a pooled ligation approach. This work presents for the first time a tool for high-throughput CRISPR screens in Plasmodium for studying the parasite’s biology at scale.