Moving “Forward” in Plasmodium Genetics through a Transposon-Based Approach

Figure 4

A putative scheme for identifying essential genes in Plasmodium using piggyBac mutagenesis. The piggyBac plasmid containing two anhydrotetracycline-(ATc-) regulated promoters, one near each terminal repeat (TR), can be first inserted into the Plasmodium genome. Upon insertion into the 5′ region of a gene, its endogenous promoter (EP) will be replaced by the ATc-regulated promoter. Addition of ATc will block transcription of the gene, allowing the evaluation of its essentiality.