Technologies for the study of gene and protein expression in Plasmodium

With the imminent completion of the genome sequences of several species of Plasmodium, attention is now turning to the exploitation of these genomic sequence data for vaccine, drug and diagnostic development. Several technologies have been developed over the past decade to assist in the determination of gene and protein expression on a global scale. Of these, DNA microarrays, novel high-throughput proteomic technologies and recombinational cloning technologies are lowering the barrier to functional genomic studies in Plasmodium. Of equal importance is the capacity to manipulate, store, retrieve and analyse the tremendous quantity of data generated from these genomic studies. This paper will address the use of these technologies as well as some of the computational tools that will be ultimately required to adequately study gene and protein expression in Plasmodium.