Figure 3

The telomere-associated lncRNA-TARE family neighbors upsB-type var loci and is coordinately expressed during parasite schizogony. (a) Dot plot analysis of the first 50,000 bp on chromosome 4 pinpoints lncRNA-TARE-4L in the TARE 2-3 region between the telomere (Tel) and a silenced upsB-type var virulence gene. (b) Subtelomeric features are diagrammed on the 11 chromosomes (Chr) from which we were able to specifically amplify lncRNA-TARE sequence. Features are not to scale, and grayed out chromosome ends were not probed. Notably, an upsB-type var gene (orange) is located adjacent to each predicted lncRNA-TARE gene (red). Furthermore, qRT-PCR amplification of 15 distinct lncRNA-TARE genes shows a coordinated pattern of late stage expression. lncRNA-TARE relative expression is plotted in time-points T20, T30, and T40 ± 3 hpi with respect to T30. Error bars represent the propagated standard error of the mean (pSEM) from two biological replicate experiments. Housekeeping gene PF08_0085 was used as the reference gene.