Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 Assembly and Gene Annotation

About the Plasmodium falciparum genome

Plasmodium falciparum is the malarial parasite most dangerous to humans, accounting for over 90% of all malarial deaths, and was the first species of the genus Plasmodium to be sequenced. Its genome is notable for an exceptionally low GC content of under 20%. In other respects, the genome has a similar size (23.3 Mb) and gene count (about 5300) to other species of malaria.

Assembly

The Plasmodium falciparum genome has a total size of 23Mb, organized in 14 chromosomes and is available from the ENA/Genbank databases under the accession GCA_000002765.2 Due to its size and the high AT content, a chromosome-based approach was chosen for the sequencing strategy. The chromosomes from P. falciparum 3D7 were distributed among the sequencing centers that make up the P. falciparum Genome Sequencing Consortium](http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/P_falciparum/who&what.shtml), established in 1996. The sequencing centers involved in this research program are The Sanger Institute, The Institute for Genomic Research(TIGR), in collaboration with the US Naval Medical Research Center, and the Stanford Genome Technology Center](http://med.stanford.edu/sgtc/research/malaria.html) at Stanford University.

Annotation

Annotation of the P. falciparum 3D7 genome is provided by GeneDB where the latest sequence data and annotation is constantly updated. Periodic releases are also available from PlasmoDB. PlasmoDB.org hosts genomic and proteomic data (and more) for different species of the parasite eukaryote Plasmodium. It brings together data provided by numerous laboratories worldwide.

References

1. Genome sequence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
   Gardner MJ, Hall N, Fung E, White O, Berriman M, Hyman RW, Carlton JM, Pain A, Nelson KE, Bowman S et al. 2002. Nature. 419:498-511.
2. Sequence of Plasmodium falciparum chromosomes 1, 3-9 and 13.
   Hall N, Pain A, Berriman M, Churcher C, Harris B, Harris D, Mungall K, Bowman S, Atkin R, Baker S et al. 2002. Nature. 419:527-531.
3. Chromosome 2 sequence of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
   Gardner MJ, Tettelin H, Carucci DJ, Cummings LM, Aravind L, Koonin EV, Shallom S, Mason T, Yu K, Fujii C et al. 1998. Science. 282:1126-1132.
4. Complete gene map of the plastid-like DNA of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
   Wilson RJ, Denny PW, Preiser PR, Rangachari K, Roberts K, Roy A, Whyte A, Strath M, Moore DJ, Moore PW et al. 1996. J. Mol. Biol.. 261:155-172.
5. The complete nucleotide sequence of chromosome 3 of Plasmodium falciparum.
   Bowman S, Lawson D, Basham D, Brown D, Chillingworth T, Churcher CM, Craig A, Davies RM, Devlin K, Feltwell T et al. 1999. Nature. 400:532-538.

More information

General information about this species can be found in Wikipedia.