Plasmodium gene expression is regulated, among others, by binding of transcription factors (TFs) to promoter regions upstream of gene bodies.
During the RBC cycle, gene expression is tightly regulated with maximal transcription of each gene being reached only once. We have previously identified and characterized the parasite-specific protein AP2-I as the TF binding to the NGGTGCA invasion motif present in the promoter of a series of genes encoding for proteins that mediate invasion of RBCs.