PfMORC protein regulates chromatin accessibility and transcriptional repression in the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum

The environmental challenges the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, faces during its progression into its various lifecycle stages warrant the use of effective and highly regulated access to chromatin for transcriptional regulation. Microrchidia (MORC) proteins have been implicated in DNA compaction and gene silencing across plant and animal kingdoms. Accumulating evidence has shed light on the role MORC protein plays as a transcriptional switch in apicomplexan parasites. In this study, using the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing tool along with complementary molecular and genomics approaches, we demonstrate that PfMORC not only modulates chromatin structure and heterochromatin formation throughout the parasite erythrocytic cycle, but is also essential to the parasite survival. Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by deep sequencing (ChIP-seq) experiments suggests that PfMORC binds to not only sub-telomeric regions and genes involved in antigenic variation but may also play a role in modulating stage transition. Protein knockdown experiments followed by chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) studies indicate that downregulation of PfMORC impairs key histone marks and induces the collapse of the parasite heterochromatin structure leading to its death. All together these findings confirm that PfMORC plays a crucial role in chromatin structure and gene regulation, validating this factor as a strong candidate for novel antimalarial strategies.