Fig. 1

Gene expression profiling of asexual and sexual parasites. Parasites expressing GFP- tagged ABCG2 [56] were tightly synchronised and induced to generate gametocytes that were subsequently FACS-sorted to separate male and female gametocytes. A Validation of sex- specific GFP expression over the course of gametocytogenesis by fluorescence microscopy. GFP signal is shown in green, Hoechst33342 signal is shown in blue. B Gating strategy for FACS sorting of viable male (MitoTrackerTM Deep Red positive, GFP low) and female (MitoTrackerTM Deep Red positive, GFP positive) gametocytes. C Validation of morphology by Giemsa staining after sorting. D RNA of FACS sorted male (day 4: n = 3, day 6: n = 2, day 10: n = 1) and female gametocytes (day 4: n = 2, day 6: n = 4, day 10: n = 4) harvested on day 4, 6, or 10 of gametocytogenesis was sequenced along with RNA from ring (n = 2) and schizont stage (n = 1) parasites. The z-scored, k-means clustered heatmap indicates peak expression of sense transcripts in the different parasite stages. The most significant gene ontology (GO) terms are shown and gene numbers are indicated in brackets