Comparison of the DNA replication dynamics between two very different malaria parasites

Together with our longstanding collaborator Catherine Merrick's lab, we've published a paper in Nucleic Acids Research comparing the DNA replication dynamics between two malaria parasites: P. knowlesi and P. falciparum. The vast majority of human illness and death from malaria is caused by P. falcparum, and its genome is 82% AT-rich. In contrast, the genome of the early-diverging apicomplexan P. knowlesi has a much more "human-like" 61% AT-richness. The DNA replication dynamics of P. falciparum was the topic of one of our 2023 papers, but here, we showed that the speed of P. falciparum replication forks is less impacted by extremely AT-rich regions than the replication forks of P. knowlesi and human cells. This research was led by Catherine's postdoc Francis Totañes and features work from our PhD student Sarah Chapman.