The pre-erythrocytic liver stage of the malaria parasite, comprising sporozoites and the liver stages into which they develop, remains one of the least understood parts of the lifecycle, in part owing to the low numbers of parasites. Nonetheless, it is recognized as an important target for antimalarial drugs and vaccines. Here we provide the first proteomic analysis of merosomes, which define the final phase of the liver stage and are responsible for initiating the blood stage of infection. We identify a total of 1879 parasite proteins, and a core set of 1188 proteins quantitatively detected in every biological replicate, providing an extensive picture of the protein repertoire of this stage. This unique data set will allow us to explore key questions about the biology of merosomes and hepatic merozoites.

中文翻译：

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血浆疟原虫质体的蛋白质组学分析：疟疾中肝脏与血液阶段之间的联系。

疟原虫的红细胞形成前肝阶段，包括子孢子和它们发育成的肝阶段，仍然是生命周期中鲜为人知的部分之一，部分原因是寄生虫数量少。但是，它被认为是抗疟疾药物和疫苗的重要目标。在这里，我们提供了质体的第一个蛋白质组学分析，它定义了肝脏阶段的最后阶段，并负责启动感染的血液阶段。我们鉴定出总共1879种寄生虫蛋白，以及在每个生物学复制物中定量检测到的1188种蛋白质的核心集，提供了该阶段蛋白质库的详尽图片。这个独特的数据集将使我们能够探索有关质体和肝裂殖子生物学的关键问题。