Plasmodium falciparum chromosomes

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Figure 5-42 Intact DNA from the chromosomes of three strains of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, ranging from 750 Kb to 5 Mb, separated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Courtesy of C. Smith and T. E. Wellems. Reproduced by permission of Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Inc.

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The chromosomes of Plasmodium do not condense during mitosis and hence they are not visible by light microscopy. Detailed information on the number and size of malaria parasite chromosomes became available only after the development of pulsed- field gel electrophoresis (Schwartz and Cantor, 1984) a clever technique that permits separation of megabase-sized molecules. Using this novel approach, it was possible to separate the 14 chromosomes of P. falciparum (Kemp et al., 1985 Van der Ploeg et ah, 1985). All species of plasmodia studied have 14 chromosomes although the size of individual chromosomes can vary amongst isolates. 

Using such an automated system half a million bases can be sequenced in a day. In the succeeding decades many genes of Plasmodium would be cloned and sequenced. Indeed, in 1996, an international consortium of scientists from more than 12 institutions set out to determine the 23 million base pairs in the nuclear DNA of P. falciparum. The 14 chromosomes were physically... 

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