Plasmodium Falciparum - The Plasmodium Falciparum Genome

The Plasmodium Falciparum Genome

In 1995, a consortium, the malaria genome project (MGP), was set up to sequence the genome of P. falciparum. The genome of its mitochondrion was reported in 1995, that of the nonphotosynthetic plastid known as the apicoplast in 1996, and the sequence of the first nuclear chromosome (chromosome 2) in 1998. The sequence of chromosome 3 was reported in 1999, and the entire genome on 3 October 2002. Annotated genome data can now be fully analyzed at several database resources including the UCSC Malaria Genome Browser, PlasmoDB and GeneDB. The ~24 megabase genome is extremely AT rich (~80%) and is organised into 14 chromosomes: just over 5,300 genes were described.