Gene Expression Analysis Reveals Genes Common to Cerebral Malaria and Neurodegenerative Disorders

Sandrine Cabantous (1) , Ogobara K Doumbo (2) , Belco Poudiougou (2) , Laurence Louis (3) , Abdoulaye Barry (4) , Aboubacar A Oumar (5) , Abdoualye Traore (4) , S. Marquet (1) , Alain Dessein (1)

1 GIMP - Génétique et immunologie des maladies parasitaires
2 Faculty of Medicine - Department of Epidemiology of Parasitic Disease [Bamako, Mali]
3 GMGF - Génétique Médicale et Génomique Fonctionnelle
4 Pediatric Wards [Bamako, Mali]
5 Centre des Oeuvres Universitaires [Bamako, Mali]

Cerebral malaria, a reversible encephalopathy affecting young children, is a medical emergency requiring urgent clinical assessment and treatment. We performed a whole-transcrip-tomic analysis of blood samples from Malian children with cerebral or uncomplicated malaria. We focused on transcripts from pathways for which dysfunction has been associated with neurodegenerative disorders. We found that SNCA, SIAH2, UBB, HSPA1A, TUBB2A, and PINK1 were upregulated (fold-increases , ≥2.6), whereas UBD and PSMC5 were downregulated (fold-decreases, ≤4.39) in children with cerebral malaria, compared with those with uncomplicated malaria. These findings provide the first evidence for pathogenic mechanisms common to human cerebral malaria and neurodegenerative disorders.

Mots clés: Neurodegenerative disorders; Expression; MRNA; PBMCs; Human; Common pathways; Cerebral malaria

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Microbiologie et Parasitologie; Biochimie, Biologie Moléculaire; Génomique, Transcriptomique et Protéomique [q-bio.GN]

Sandrine Cabantous, Ogobara K Doumbo, Belco Poudiougou, Laurence Louis, Abdoulaye Barry, et al.. Gene Expression Analysis Reveals Genes Common to Cerebral Malaria and Neurodegenerative Disorders. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2017, 216 (6), pp.771 - 775. ⟨10.1093/infdis/jix359⟩. ⟨hal-01902060⟩