Implementation of antibody microarrays for the determination and meta-analysis of host signalling dynamics during intracellular Apicomplexan infection

This thesis investigated how the host cells signalling network is affected by intracellular infection by several Apicomplexan parasites, namely Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium knowlesi, Babesia bovis and Toxoplasma gondii. In this study I identified several host signalling kinases to be significantly more phosphorylated during infection, including two kinases (B-Raf and c-MET), which were essential to the pathogen’s survival in these cells (P. falciparum infection). Additionally, comparison of the signalling changes across the species listed above enabled the identification of key host kinases which may have conserved roles in several Apicomplexan infections.