Integrated modelling of lipid metabolism in Plasmodium, the causative parasite of malaria

Malaria is responsible of the death of up to one million people each year. This disease is caused by Plasmodium, a protozoan parasite. In this thesis we have developed systems biology approaches to the study of phospholipid (PL) metabolism and its regulation in Plasmodium. These pathways are of primary importance for the survival of the parasite. At the blood stage, Plasmodium species display a bewildering number of PL synthetic pathways that are rarely found together in a single organism (i) the ancestral prokaryotic CDPdiacylglycerol dependent pathway (ii) the eukaryotic type de novo CDP-choline and CDPethanolamine (Kennedy) pathways (iii) P. falciparum and P. knowlesi exhibits additional reactions that bridge some of these routes. A plant-like pathway that relies on serine to provide additional PC and PE, is named the serine decarboxylase-phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase (SDPM) pathway. To understand the dynamics of PL acquisition and metabolism in Plasmodium we have used fluxomic data to build a quantitative kinetic model. In vitro incorporation dynamics of phospholipids unravels multiple synthetic pathways. A detailed metabolic network with values of the kinetic parameters (maximum rates and Michaelis constants) has been built. In order to obtain a global search in the parameter space, we have designed a hybrid, discrete and continuous, optimisation method. Discrete parameters were used to sample the cone of admissible fluxes, whereas the continuous Michaelis and maximum rates constants were obtained by local minimization of an objective function.The model was used to predict the distribution of fluxes within the network of various metabolic precursors. The quantitative analysis was used to understand eventual links between different pathways. The major source of phosphatidylcholine (PC) is the CDP-choline Kennedy pathway. In silico knock-out experiments showed comparable importance of phosphoethanolamine-N-methyltransferase (PMT) and phosphatidylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase (PEMT) for PC synthesis. The flux values indicate that, major part of serine derived phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) is formed via serine decarboxylation, whereas the phosphatidylserine (PS) is mainly predominated by base-exchange reactions. Metabolic control analysis of CDP-choline pathway shows that the carrier-mediated choline entry into the parasite and the phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase reaction have the largest control coefficients in this pathway, but does not distinguish a reaction as an unique rate-limiting step.With a vision to understand regulation of gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum and its influence on the metabolite expression, we have performed an integrative bioinformatic studies. The study integrates transcriptome and metabolome data for the main enzymes involved in PL metabolism. The study of the correlated time dependence of metabolic and transcriptomic variables during the intraerythrocytic cycle showed that there are two modes of activation of PL pathways. Kennedy pathways are activated during schizogony and early ring stages, whereas SDPM and base exchange pathways are activated during late ring and tropozoite stages.