Prediction of human Plasmodium sex specific gene by homology search: a systematic review and meta-synthesis

Human Plasmodium species have a sex specific process in the life cycle namely gametocytogenesis or gametogenesis. Gametocytes production and subsequent gametes zygosis are critical for malaria parasites to link to mosquito stage and to merge to sexual reproduction. Here, we aimed at the identification of genes related to gametocytogenesis or gametogenesis in human malaria using systematic review, meta-synthesis and homology search. Based on our search terms, we conducted a systematic search of published data in nine databases resulting in 96 finally included papers with a total of 255 genes from apicomplexan species. We found more papers involved in Plasmodium than we had expected, which reflects that the extensive amount of research on Plasmodium genes have been examined. Subsequently we searched sequence homology between FASTA sequences of apicomplexan sex specific genes other than human malaria parasites and those of human malaria parasites genome on PlasmoDB. We focused on eight candidate genes of Plasmodium falciparum (PF). Finally we predicted that PRPF6, SMC1 and SMC2 can be the especially promising candidate genes.