Major transcriptional changes observed in the Fulani, an ethnic group less susceptible to malaria
- The Wenner-Gren Instiute, Stockholm University, Sweden
- Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme, Burkina Faso
- Karolinksa Institute, Sweden
- Karolinska Institute, Sweden
- The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden
- Central European Institute of Technology, Czech Republic
- The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm Univerity, Sweden
Abstract
The Fulani ethnic group has relatively better protection from Plasmodium falciparum malaria, as reflected by fewer symptomatic cases of malaria, lower infection rates, and lower parasite densities compared to sympatric ethnic groups<strong>.</strong> However, the basis for this lower susceptibility to malaria by the Fulani is unknown. We have performed a pilot study to examine global transcription and DNA methylation patterns in specific immune cell populations in the Fulani to elucidate the mechanisms that confer the lower susceptibility to P.falciparum malaria. When we compared uninfected and infected Fulani individuals, in contrast to uninfected and infected individuals from the sympatric ethnic group Mossi, we observed a key difference: a strong transcriptional response was only detected in the monocyte fraction of the Fulani, where over 1000 genes were significantly differentially expressed upon P.falciparum infection.
Data availability
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Major transcriptional changes observed in the Fulani; an ethnic group less susceptible to malariaPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE100563).
Article and author information
Author details
Ann-Kristin Östlund Farrants
Funding
SciLife pilot grant, Stockholm University
- Mary A O'Connell
- Marita Troye-Blomberg
- Ann-Kristin Östlund Farrants
BioMalPar European Network of Excellence (LSHP-CT-2004-503578)
- Ioana Bujila
- Marita Troye-Blomberg
European Communite's Seventh Network Programme (FP7/2007-2013 N 242095)
- Marita Troye-Blomberg
Sven and Lilly Lawskis Fund
- Jaclyn E Quin
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: The study protocol and the informed consent were approved by the Institutional Review Board, The Technical Committee of the Centre National de Lutte contre le Paludisme of the Ministry of Health of Burkina Faso (2014/065/MS/SG/CNRFP/CIB). The study was conducted in compliance with International Conference on Harmonization's Good Clinical Practice principles, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the regulatory requirements of Burkina Faso.
Copyright
© 2017, Quin et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Major transcriptional changes observed in the Fulani, an ethnic group less susceptible to malaria
eLife 6:e29156.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.29156
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