Fig. 3

Intraerythrocytic development and pir gene expression across the 24 h asexual blood cycle of P. c. chabaudi AS parasites transmitted by RMT. A Microscopic counts of ring, trophozoite and schizont stage parasites in Giemsa-stained blood smears, as a proportion of the total parasitaemia (n = 3). Graphs show mean (± SD). Value 1 would indicate that all parasites counted, are of the specific developmental stage. B Heatmap of pir gene expression, log(TPM + 1), at each timepoint. Genes are grouped according to sub-family (L1, L4, S1 and S7) and ordered by mean expression across the timepoints within each sub-family, with the ancestral pir at the very top. Three blood stage-specific genes were included for comparison ‘ref’: MSP1 (highly transcribed in schizonts/merozoites), HSP70 (highly transcribed in rings/trophozoites) and AMA1 (highly transcribed in schizonts/merozoites). Genes expressed under 1 TPM in every sample were removed. C Heatmap of transcription of the pir genes assigned to ChAPL or AAPL loci [20], log(TPM + 1), at each timepoint, grouped according to locus