Figure 4From: A computational model of gene expression reveals early transcriptional events at the subtelomeric regions of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparumSnapshots of expression change rates during the IDC. Shown are five key frames of an animation of expression change rates during the IDC where red dots indicate up-regulation and blue dots down-regulation as determined by the rate of expression change. (a) After 8 hours at the beginning of the cycle (ring stage) the central chromosomal regions show an overall down-regulation (blue) while few genes within the subtelomeres are strongly up-regulated (red). (b) After 20 hours (late ring to early trophozoite stage) this is followed by an overall up-regulation in the center regions together with a down-regulation at the chromosomal ends. (c) After 30 hours (late-trophozoite to early-schizont), there is a mixture of strong up-regulation and weak down-regulation over the whole genome without specific subtelomeric activities. (d) After 40 hours (mid-schizont stage) a second strong up-regulation at the chromosome ends can be observed, which is accompanied by weak down-regulation in the intrachromosomal sections. (e) After 44 hour there is, again, an overall up-regulation in central chromosomal regions. Note the alternation of gene regulation between subtelomeric regions and central chromosomal regions. Upper left corner of each frame: 'infection timer' where the red and blue curves represent the number of genes having the strongest up- (red) or down- (blue) regulation at a specific time (density curves over time of strongest positive or negative change of expression; see also Materials and methods).Back to article page