Genome-wide analysis of the human malaria parasitePlasmodium falciparumtranscription factor PfNF-YB shows interaction with a CCAAT motif

// Wânia Rezende Lima 1, * , David Correa Martins 2 , Kleber Simônio Parreira 3, * , Pedro Scarpelli 1 , Miriam Santos de Moraes 1 , Pantelis Topalis 4 , Ronaldo Fumio Hashimoto 5 and Célia R.S. Garcia 1 1 Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil 2 Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição, Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo André, Brazil 3 Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil 4 Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, FORTH, Hellas, Greece 5 Departamento de Ciência da Computação, Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil * Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Naturais-Medicina, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso-Campus Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, Brazil Correspondence to: Célia R.S. Garcia, email: cgarcia@usp.br Keywords: transcription factor; CCAAT-box; malaria; Plasmodium falciparum; signaling Received: March 24, 2017     Accepted: November 26, 2017     Published: December 09, 2017 ABSTRACT Little is known about transcription factor regulation during the Plasmodium falciparum intraerythrocytic cycle. In order to elucidate the role of the P. falciparum (Pf)NF-YB transcription factor we searched for target genes in the entire genome. PfNF-YB mRNA is highly expressed in late trophozoite and schizont stages relative to the ring stage. In order to determine the candidate genes bound by PfNF-YB a ChIP-on-chip assay was carried out and 297 genes were identified. Ninety nine percent of PfNF-YB binding was to putative promoter regions of protein coding genes of which only 16% comprise proteins of known function. Interestingly, our data reveal that PfNF-YB binding is not exclusively to a canonical CCAAT box motif. PfNF-YB binds to genes coding for proteins implicated in a range of different biological functions, such as replication protein A large subunit (DNA replication), hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (nucleic acid metabolism) and multidrug resistance protein 2 (intracellular transport).