Abstract
Plasmodium berghei
and
Plasmodium chabaudi
are widely used model malaria species. Comparison of their genomes, integrated with proteomic and microarray data, with the genomes of
Plasmodium falciparum
and
Plasmodium yoelii
revealed a conserved core of 4500
Plasmodium
genes in the central regions of the 14 chromosomes and highlighted genes evolving rapidly because of stage-specific selective pressures. Four strategies for gene expression are apparent during the parasites' life cycle: (i) housekeeping; (ii) host-related; (iii) strategy-specific related to invasion, asexual replication, and sexual development; and (iv) stage-specific. We observed posttranscriptional gene silencing through translational repression of messenger RNA during sexual development, and a 47-base 3′ untranslated region motif is implicated in this process.